


Hard Rain's Going to Fall I thru V, A

by Ursula



Category: The X-Files
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2000-07-15
Updated: 2000-07-15
Packaged: 2018-11-20 09:34:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 56,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11333091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ursula/pseuds/Ursula
Summary: Note from alice ttlg, the archivist: this story was originally archived atThe Basement, which moved to the AO3 to ensure the stories are always available and so that authors may have complete control of their own works. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in June 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address onThe Basement's collection profile.





	Hard Rain's Going to Fall I thru V, A

**Author's Note:**

> Note from alice ttlg, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [The Basement](http://fanlore.org/wiki/The_Basement), which moved to the AO3 to ensure the stories are always available and so that authors may have complete control of their own works. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in June 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [The Basement's collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/thebasement/profile).

 

A Hard Rain's Going to Fall by Ursula

Title: A Hard Rain's Going to Fall  
Author/pseudonym: Ursula  
Fandom: X-Files  
Pairing: Alex Krycek/Walter Skinner/Fox Mulder  
Rating: NC-17  
Status: New  
Archive: Anywhere, as a complete story. If you have a constructive critique and wish to use a portion, contact me directly.  
E-mail address for feedback: or   
Series/Sequel: Is this story part of a series: Stand-alone  
Other websites: My page at RATB, thanks to Ned & Leny: http://www.squidge.org/terma/ursula/ursula.htm  
Disclaimers:   
Notes: Mostly for Arsenic's birthday. She asked for stories from the April Rent Boy Challenge. (And I owe her the effort for, 'From This Nettle, We Pluck This Flower', probably my favorite Skinner/Krycek Tunguska story.)  
This also satisfies the June Home Town Challenge. Come visit the Puyallup Reservation in the season of canned lightening and thunder.  
Thank You to the perfect beta, Karen S.  
Time Frame: After Scully's return and before Anasazi.

* * *

A Hard Rain's Going To Fall

Skinner sighed as he watched Mulder pretend to look out the window. It was a long flight and Mulder's silence was hard to endure. He had worked through the first part of the trip, but he was tired and disgusted, not wanting to read another report from a moronic agent or draft another piece of diplomatic bullshit to the director. 

Skinner had really regarded the conference as a bit of a vacation, an opportunity to do more with Mulder than fall into bed with him when they weren't working or argue when they were. Maybe neither of them was the other's first choice, but he thought they were good together anyway. Mulder, however, had been unremittingly gloomy from the moment they had boarded the plane. He had spent every moment while they waited for their flight, chatting with Scully on his mobile phone. Now he had gone silent, shadows across those hazel eyes. Mulder sighed and shook his head, some silent commentary on his thoughts.

Skinner didn't need to guess about whom Mulder was thinking. Many nights Skinner lay awake, thinking about every thing he could have done differently. He could have refused to assign Krycek to the case or dissuaded Mulder from his role in the investigation. He certainly could have prevented Krycek from working on any other cases with Mulder.

Right, Walter, he told his delusional mind. And what about inviting young agent Krycek to his apartment? What about drinking a little too much and reaching over to loosen Alex Krycek's red striped tie? And then kissing those heart shaped lips, his heart pounding like a teenage Romeo as he set about seducing his first male lover since he had married Sharon.

Walter shifted in the airline seat, glanced at Mulder who seemed lost in some grim world of his own. Walter let his thoughts drift. He remembered how good Krycek tasted...the sweet honey of his mouth, the salty riches of his flesh...Those few days they had spent as lovers he had never lived so sensually; had never felt so alive.

Walter had managed to persuade himself that Krycek wanted him too. He remembered standing, holding out his hand for Krycek to take. And Alex hadn't hesitated. Walter had kissed those lips again, finished peeling the ill-fitting suit away from the long, lean body. He had been aglow with lust and with pride. Yeah, pride...Sharon didn't want him, but this beautiful young man did.

They had paused in the doorway of Walter's bedroom; Alex had leaned back, smiling. His body was a bow; a white elegant arch and his heavy cock had been the arrow, strung tight for Walter's pleasure. 

Walter clenched his fists. It couldn't all have been lies. Damn it, the man would have to be the greatest actor in the world to fake every emotion, to mimic the passion that he had shown. Walter shifted restlessly. Maybe if he hadn't panicked a week later...telling Krycek it was over, that he couldn't take the risk of an affair with a subordinate, a male subordinate at that. He remembered the look in Krycek's eyes as if something was dying inside him.

Still, it hadn't stopped Krycek from seducing Mulder, or was it the other way around? 

You could say this for them, a pair of fools who had fallen for the oldest trick in the book...they didn't think to be terrified for their careers until Scully left the hospital. 

Walter remembered clearly that he had meant nothing by his offer to drive Mulder home. The man was exhausted. Mulder had hardly slept since the night that Duane Barry took his partner. 

Walter had walked Mulder to his door then decided to make sure the agent slept. He had been nagging, acting a tough, tender role that fit so comfortably that he was hardly aware it was an act. He had bullied Mulder into the shower and walked into the bedroom to turn down the sheets. And stopped. The bed had accumulated a layer of materials that hadn't grown in a week or even in a month.

Mulder had walked in behind him and said, "I haven't slept there since he left. I don't think I could ever sleep there again. How could I have been so stupid? I thought he loved me...damn it, Walter...I thought you were crazy for breaking it off with him, but I was happy. I felt like I had taken something, but I was a fool."

Walter recalled feeling a sinking sensation, the first terrified realization of the damage he had invited by his weakness. Mulder shook his head and said, "He didn't tell me. I followed him after work one day."

Pissed, Walter had asked, "You did what?"

Mulder had offered a sheepish flicker of a smile, "Well, yeah, you heard me. One day, Alex couldn't keep his eyes off of me, and the next, it was as if I wasn't on the same planet. And I was just about to make my move. I just wanted to know who the competition was...so I followed him."

Walter had remarked, "Mulder, you're a stalker!" The conversation went from there and ended back at Walter's apartment and they had comforted each other. Comforted each other two or three times a week when Mulder wasn't in the field or when their office spats didn't sour the thing until one or the other was too hungry to be pissed any more. They were waiting for the blackmail to start. It never had...

Walter startled at the sudden touch. He looked at Mulder who muttered, "Hey, Walter, sorry I've been such a shit. I had one of those dreams last night. Didn't sleep after I woke up. I called Scully to make sure she was all right. She chewed me up one side and down the other."

Walter said, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry I ordered you to attend this. I just thought you needed a break. I shouldn't make decisions for you."

Mulder grinned and said, "Nah, it was a good call. But I'm still going to make you pay, Walter."

The devil of humor reborn in those hazel eyes thrilled Walter. Maybe this was going to be one of his better impulses after all.

Walter and Mulder both were on a cult panel the first day of the conference. Mulder and he drifted through the rest of that day, bored and not especially interested in the other presentations. As for the social event planned for the evening, Mulder folded the brochure into a paper airplane and sailed it into the trashcan. He slouched back on the bed and said, drooping heavy lidded eyes, "Walter, I want to play."

Walter felt a twitch in his trousers. Not quite as sexy as Alex had said it, but it was good. It worked. He reached to rip off his tie and Mulder said, "No, Walter, I want to play a special game."

Disappointed, Walter said, "What do you want?"

Mulder said throatily, "You ever wonder what it would have been like if we had both moved on him?"

There was no need for Mulder to explain. It was sick and twisted, given the way they were supposed to feel about Krycek. That didn't stop Walter's nervous system from sending an electric charge down his spine and straight to his cock. 

Mulder asked, "Hey, Walter, is there one of your clubs around here?"

Walter thought about it and said, "Next town over. What did you have in mind?"

Mulder smiled, a totally depraved, lust driven expression. He said, "Call them. You'll figure it out."

Walter leaned against the wall. As Mulder cupped the phone to his ear he did a slow strip tease. "Yeah, that's right. It's for a three way. Now this is what I need, exactly, it has to be exact. He has to be tall six feet or over. He should be lean, but not scrawny. He should be conditioned, broad shoulders, good ass, a really fine ass. His eyes have to be green and I like long lashes, not fake ones though. I need dark hair and the face should be something special. Little snub nose, prominent cheekbones, sweet mouth, lower lip full and nice heart shape on the upper. No, I'm not kidding. My friend says you pride yourself on supplying any fantasy. So prove it." Mulder grinned and said, "Yeah, tomorrow will be fine."

Mulder finished stripping and said, "Get over here, Walter. I'm hot..."

Walter thought it was insane, but...Mulder said, "Yeah, holding him between us. My cock down his throat. Your cock in his ass. Make him scream. You know the way he would breath after he came, deep breaths almost as if he was going to cry and his eyes would be so big. I used to kiss him and look into his face. I never wanted to stop. Never had enough."

Walter said, "Shut up, Mulder. Just shut up."

When they called Teddy back the next day, the Madame said, "I am the best. You're set for tonight. Oh, but you are so going to owe me, Mr. W."

Walter said, "Don't worry about that. I have a rich friend."

Mulder hurriedly stuffed his suits in the bags and jammed his other clothing in the small suitcase he had packed. He watched Walter carefully folding his tee shirts into his suitcase for all of two minutes. He then grabbed two handfuls of clothing stuffed in Walter's bags and said, "There! All packed."

Walter took a deep breath and said, "Mulder, if I wasn't still in a post-coital glow from last night..."

Wisely changing the subject, Mulder muttered, "Tacoma? Isn't that an Indian word for place of industrial waste?"

Walter said, "Mulder, do you want to do this or complain about where the house is located?"

Mulder snickered and commented, "I'm not sure now. What if the Madame supplies a paragon in plaid, singing, "I'm a lumberjack and I'm all right?"

Walter said, "Then we sing the chorus with him before we go to bed."

Mulder laughed. He was in good humor, aglow, thrilled by the chance of fulfilling his fantasy. Walter reached over patting the lean muscles of his lover. Second choice for both of them or not, he and Mulder were good together when they weren't arguing...when they didn't end up half fighting because neither was entirely comfortable taking a passive role in fucking. Well, hell, the semi combat of their love life added spice.

Mulder snickered as they drove through the waterfront town. The blue semicircle of the Tacoma dome looked like a painted breast, missing its double. "Gawd, this is Hicksville," he remarked.

Walter couldn't disagree, but one of his favorite books was Murray Morgan's "Skid Row" and he couldn't help trying to imagine the town in its rowdy, turn of the century days. Seattle was a prima donna. Tacoma was an old whore, now dowdy and married, dwelling in regrets of wilder days.

Walter said, "True, but this is where the local club is located and we need discretion."

Mulder's desire for a closer look at the atrocities of architecture had taken them off route. Walter drove up hill and down hill, ending on a long flat section of road. It was a tough part of town. He gritted his teeth as a cataclysmic series of explosions rattled the windows. Mulder had drawn his gun and was looking wildly around for assailants.

Walter said, "Shit, Mulder, put that away! Teddy warned me about this. We are right in the middle of the Puyallup Indian reservation during fire works season. She said it was going to sound like a heavy fire fight."

Mulder wide-eyed put his gun away and peered out the window. Just then a hillside above the blighted road exploded with dancing lights. Mulder's face lit like a child's and he said, "Hey, look at that! Stop the car, Walter. I want to see."

They stopped, although Walter put a cautious hand on his gun. They weren't the only ones to stop and look. Whole families emerged and sat on porches. A woman walking a pack of dogs stopped to take a gander at the display. Tough looking teenagers in gang gear shrieked and pointed, forgetting for a moment that everything bored them. The display ended in a few moments; the two of them reclaimed their car quickly before the various posses, could do more then start to circle their prey.

Walter headed back till he saw a freeway sign and took I-5 toward the city. This time he took the correct exit and found the main street, which led to the huge Victorian house that housed the night's entertainment. The tarmac of the street was partially worn away, revealing a hint of cobblestones beneath. They rumbled down the rough surface until they found the white painted imitation of an antebellum mansion. Walter would have said that it was indiscreet except for the whole row of houses seemed to have been designed by someone who learned architecture from 'Gone With The Wind'.

Mulder grinned, happier then he had been since the green-eyed rat betrayed them all. Mulder said, "Oh, Rhett, Tara's not burnt after all..."

Walter parked and pointed at the bed and breakfast sign. He said, "Perfect cover and they're always booked up when someone who's not on the list calls for a reservation."

Teddy, the local Madame, had a sense of humor. Her staff wore crinolines, both male and female and the rustle of taffeta was almost deafening. The room, of course, was decorated in the finest Scarlet O'Hara style. Mulder bounced on the four-poster bed and then checked on the posts, which were already outfitted with leather rigging for bondage play. He said, "Damn Walter, you sure know how to treat a guy. Now if they just found what I ordered, I could die a happy man."

  
Walter grimaced. If he hadn't promised Mulder that this was his fantasy, he would have balked when he heard Mulder describe what he wanted, green eyes, and dark hair, tall, slim, and pretty. It took Teddy all of yesterday to find a player who matched. She said that the man was not a regular, but was being auditioned for a place in another stable. They had shipped him down with a bonus and told Teddy to have her customers critique the performance. Walter expected that the man would be trying hard to please. A place in the ring-clubs would guarantee a good income, safe customers, and even possible rise to management. Hell, Walter had once had the privilege of a performance by Teddy herself just before she retired to administration.

Mulder undressed rapidly. His imagination must have started at the show because he was already starting to fill and rise. Walter poured a drink and stood sipping it as he waited for the knock that would signal the arrival of the night's entertainment. Mulder asked, "Do I have time to shower?"

Walter checked his watch and said, "Sure, if you hurry."

Walter admitted that he was looking forward to this too, even if he was trying hard not to imagine a face that would match the details that Mulder supplied. He answered the knock promptly and saw a black leather clad figure. Just then one of the attendants dropped a tray with a loud clang. The man jumped and looked in the direction of the sound, which gave Walter just the time needed to pull the man inside.

"Hey, take it ea..." The husky voice broke in mid word and a moment later was replaced by a half audible exclamation of "Shhhitt!"

Mulder who had stepped out of the bathroom, exclaimed, "Krycek!" as he realized what had happened. Walter managed to get in one punch before Mulder joined him, clouting the man's head and kneeing him in the groin. Walter had kicked the door shut behind him so the soundproofing surely kept the man's guttural cries from escaping the room. 

Without a word, both man had the same thought and put it into practice. They stripped away the tight leather clothing. Mulder sat on the writhing naked body until Walter managed to fasten the padded cuffs to the flailing wrists and ankles. Walter grabbed a handful of hair, momentarily thrilling at the softness and forced the man's face up. He spat into the green eyes, watching as the long lashes fluttered and then the eyes tightly closed. Tears of pain and fright escaped beneath and that soft pink mouth was trembling.

Mulder showed no inclination to dismount. He looked sexy as hell, naked and ruddy from both arousal and the struggle. Walter licked his lips, aware that he was hard, stone hard, painfully erect and that he had no interest in bringing Krycek any place for questioning until he and Mulder got what they had paid for.

Walter's professional side did surface long enough to make him search through the clothing. No gun...that surprised him although he did find that the biker's boots concealed a thin, sharp hide away knife and that a garrote cord masqueraded as a one of the jacket's decorations. Krycek's wallet was a cheap, worn leather thing. He had driver's license endorsed for motorcycles and about a hundred dollars in small bills. Walter snickered as he found a current blood donor's card made out to Desmond Connor. 

"Well, Desmond, you want to explain what you were doing here before I gut you with your own knife." Walter asked, playing with the thin blade.

"Fuck..." The 'you', that followed, turned into a grunt of pain as Mulder dragged Krycek's head further back than it should have gone without tearing a few muscles.

Mulder dreamily said, "Nice long hair, Krycek. Feels good and sooo convenient."

Walter took the blade and delicately traced a line up and down the soft flesh of Krycek's helplessly spread thighs. "Your boss is looking for you." Walter remarked. "It seems that the FBI wasn't the only employer you left without notice. I don't think that the old man is looking for you to give you severance pay, my darling. So what happened, Krycek? After you helped him kidnap Scully, why aren't you the golden boy?"

Krycek rolled his face into the mattress. Walter clenched his jaw. He felt that incipient burn in his gut. God damn it, he would not feel anything. He couldn't.

Krycek gasped as Mulder moved to press down on his spine with a knee. He struggled for breath and said in a thin voice, "You got her back. You got her back alive...you got what you wanted. Who do you think made that happen? You really think the smoking man relented? You asshole..." Then a feeble bare whisper, "You only ever loved her. You fucked me and you loved her."

Mulder's face drained and he scrambled away, the sadistic grin fading from his face. He said, "You're a lying scumbag, Krycek. You had nothing to do with Scully's return."

Walter's hand trembled on the knife. Something he remembered made him believe it. A few days after Scully was returned, the smoking man had paid him a visit. He asked if Walter had seen Krycek. When he asked Spender what made him think that he had heard from the rogue agent, the smoke-harsh voice had said, "Krycek's a piece of work. I sent him in to get a collar on you, but he told me that you didn't buy it. I can still hear that catamite's voice saying, 'Skinner's a man of honor. He wouldn't screw a subordinate'." Spender had crumpled a cigarette in Walter's half eaten breakfast. He said, "so when the disobedient boy wonder ran, I thought he might have come to you for help."

  
Walter had just barely contained his shock. He had assumed that Krycek had turned in color pictures, home videos, and a narration sung in four-part harmony to the man who had made Walter's life hell. Walter had covered his surprise with a laugh and said, "One thing that reassures me...you people can't seem to keep your information accurate. What made you think that I would fall for Krycek?"

Spender said, "Alan White...your very dear companion right after you returned state side. Remember him? Tall, green eyed, pretty, and so very, very sweet? And you were so broken up by his suicide that you promptly married the first woman that would have you."

Which was all true and Walter realized at the same time that for some reason Krycek had not betrayed him in that particular detail. It made him almost ill to understand that their affair had meant something to the boy.

Walter ran his hand gently over Krycek's trembling back. "So what did you do, Krycek? How did you set it up?"

Krycek's voice sounded faded and distant, a dying resonance in the room. He said, "No one watches them closely when they are terminal. There's a camera in the ward, but it's only for the scientists. They always want to see how long it takes...if anything's different once they're exposed. Looking for a way to protect us from the cancer. No one was watching me either by then. They thought I had learned my lesson. It was easy. Just pick her up. She didn't weigh anything at all. Funny, I never realized how little she was until then. Anyway, I just wrote in the chart that subject FAC100_DS expired and the time. Put her in the trunk of the Smoker's car." Krycek laughed harshly and said, "He sent me out to get his cigarettes, you see, so I got to drive his car. I left her at the hospital. Ditched his car and just kept right on going. I was afraid that he would figure it out eventually. And I wanted to get away. I just wanted some other life."

Mulder had come back. He turned Krycek's face to him and said, "You'd say anything to save your miserable life."

Krycek jerked his head away and buried it in the sheets. His fists balled until the knuckles were white. He finally said, "Yeah, you're right. I made it up."

Krycek said, "Just get it over with."

  
Mulder said, his voice thick with self loathing, "Not that quickly, Krycek. Walter and I paid for the night's entertainment and we are going to have it." His voice dropped to a low, intimate whisper. "You make a pretty whore, Krycek. Must come naturally to you, huh?"

Krycek refused to answer, keeping his face hidden. Mulder dragged it up, using another handful of soft hair. "I went through all the trouble of pretending I gave a damn about you. If I knew I just had to take out my wallet..."

Krycek tried to jerk away. His body tensed as he arched, fighting the restraints. He said, "Shut the fuck up, Mulder. You don't know...you don't know what it's like to be on the run. You always have protection. You're the golden boy with the silver spoon. Well, I ran with nothing other than my body to live on. I'm not proud of it, but fuck if I'll let you look down on me because of it."

Krycek flailed, fighting the leather thongs that bound him to the bed. Despite the sturdy frame, the bed shook with Krycek's crazed effort to free his arms and legs. Walter laid his large hand on Krycek's back. He said, "Calm down, boy. Mulder, get off of him. Krycek, we did pay for an evening's entertainment. You provide it and we'll let you walk."

"What?" Mulder squawked.

Walter said, "Think about it. Would you like to explain where or how we found him? Besides, there are no charges against him, Mulder."

Mulder looked stunned. Walter knew that as paranoid as Mulder could be, he still didn't understand how bad this was. Mulder said, "There's my report..."

Walter's laugh was a bitter humorless sound. He said, "It appears that it was misfiled."

"Shit," Mulder said. He looked back at Krycek's naked body and said, "Then all there is left is to collect our pound of flesh."

Krycek's voice was furious. He said, "I'll get your money refunded."

Mulder growled, "No, I think this will be fun. Don't you think this will be fun, Walter?"

As a matter of fact, he didn't. Not rape. Not force. His hand still spread across Alex's naked back. He could feel the tiny quivers of fear and anger that Krycek couldn't disguise. Without thinking, he stroked softly over the smooth flesh. Krycek shuddered and shuddered again. "Don't." Krycek begged. 

  
Walter asked, "Don't what?"

"Make me feel." Alex replied.

Mulder cocked his head, stared at Krycek for a moment uncertainly before saying, "Cut the bull shit, Krycek."

Walter smoothed his hand down the toned back again and again. He watched Alex's hand slowly uncurl from its fist. He whispered, "That's it. Let it go. Let it go, Alex." Alex's face lifted, moved to the side. Those lashes, too heavy to lift now, sodden with tears, quivered against the blade of his cheek. "You're thin. You haven't been eating, Alex."

Alex moved toward him as far as the tethers would reach. Mulder's hand reached out, an aborted gesture. Walter saw Mulder swallow hard, the bob of his Adam's apple as he turned away. Walter said, "Alex, I'm going to untie you now. When you're free, you can leave if you want to go." Walter let that rest a moment in the hush of the room. He let his hand rest on Alex's hip. "I would prefer that you stayed."

Alex's lip quivered and he said, "Aren't so worried about your wife any more? What's up with you and Mulder? Or was I just too dumb to notice? What was I? Part of some sick game? A bet? See who could seduce the pretty boy first?"

Walter said, "Alex, Sharon left me again anyway. Somehow I thought you knew that."

Alex quickly rubbed his cheek against the linens, brushing more tears away. His voice, rough with emotion, sounded like it had the second night they had made love, strained to breaking, a sexy rasp of a sound. "Mulder didn't tell me."

Walter understood why. Mulder must have been afraid that Walter would want Alex back. Of course, he had, but he wasn't that selfish. He had rejected Alex once and he didn't want to hurt him again. And, less unselfishly, he didn't have the confidence to believe Alex would have come back. 

Walter untied one wrist, looked at Mulder who looked away again and then shrugged, untying the hand nearest him. Walter moved to take the tether off at the ankle on his side of the bed. Mulder was mirroring him, but as he freed the leather cuff, a sharp exhalation of air escaped him.

Mulder said, "What the hell did they do to you, Alex? Walter, look at this..."

There was a circular scar, no, a pattern of scars that curved in about the flesh in jagged intervals. Mulder still held the mutilated ankle. His long fingers traced the scars as if not believing what he saw or as if trying to heal them with his touch.

Freed, Alex jerked his ankle from Mulder's grip and huddled away from them both. Walter saw the sole of Alex's foot and acid flooded his mouth. He knew that hadn't been there before. He had played with that foot; he had kissed the arch teasingly. Mulder caught Walter's reaction and he asked, "What?"

Walter reached. Alex shook his head and drew tighter into his knot of flesh. Walter said, "Alex, let Mulder see. He needs to see it too. It was the Smoker; wasn't it?"

Alex nodded, color staining his face. He was ashamed of the marks. Walter held the foot in his lap. He knew burn scars. This was as if someone had tested a palette of methods all on this one piece of flesh. The small round ones were cigarette burns. The larger ones were perhaps from a fireplace poker. The spatula shaped one was probably a cigarette lighter.

Alex said, "People don't usually look at your feet. That's why he put them there. He didn't want to limit my usefulness."

Mulder remarked, "Unless he wanted to pander you to someone with a foot fetish."

Alex reacted with a quick hiss of anger. Mulder held up his hands in a placating gesture "Hey, just trying to lighten the mood."

Krycek said in a weary voice, "Mulder, you were always such an ass. I don't know why I lo...put up with you."

Mulder noticed the word substitution just as Walter did. He said, "Yeah, I heard what you didn't say, Alex."

Walter watched Mulder's face. He knew Mulder was working through the anger and regrets. Mulder reached for Alex's foot again, tracing the scars. Walter was inclined to believe Alex. Alex would have known better then to run again after that punishment.

Walter said, "Mulder, I think he's telling the truth. Cancer-man came to see me, asking about him. He thought Alex might have come to me for help. I really think Alex is on the run from them."

Alex nodded and said, "I am."

Mulder looked away and then he let out a shuddering breath, the brittle barrier shattering. He gazed silently at Alex, still holding the scarred foot. Finally, he said, "Yes, I believe."

Alex almost smiled. His eyes met Mulder's for a long moment and then as if there could be no resistance, the one leaned toward the other and their lips met. Mulder's hands came up, claiming territory. His long fingers stroked through Alex's hair. They knelt on the bed, the soft romantic light kissing their bodies. God, they were beautiful. Walter watched them and he really thought about leaving. Should really leave them alone, he thought. He went as far as the edge of the bed. Two hands, not a matched pair, reached for him. 

Mulder's mood had segued back. Now, he smiled, one of his goofy what the hell grins. Mulder said, "All for one and one for all." He tugged off Walter's tie and threw it coiling to the floor. Alex hesitated then he reached past Mulder, unbuttoning Walter's shirt. Walter shivered as kisses flew over his body, marked territory as they unveiled it. Two mouths vied for dominance over his flesh until they stopped mid struggle to kiss each other. Walter shrugged away his remaining clothing.

It was all hands and lips; no harmony at first as they touched greedily, devoured each other until they fell in a tangled heap of momentary satiation. Alex lay between the two of them; his eyes open, gazing at something no one else could see. Walter moved that lock of hair aside. For weeks after he had sent Alex away, he still wanted to reach over and push that stubborn thing aside for him. Alex's eyes flickered. A smile, just a small ghost of one, lighted on his lips. He caught Walter's hand, bringing it to his lips.

Mulder propped himself on one elbow, gazing down at Alex. Tenderly, he traced Alex's face as if he needed to paint it in Braille upon his own heart. "I lied," Mulder said, "I lied about not loving you."

Alex said, "Yeah, I know. You don't lie too well, Mulder. You always look to one side when you do. Ask Walter."

Mulder said, "What did he hurt you for? Why did he do that to you?"

Alex said, "When he told me what he had done...left his cigarettes in that car, I wanted to kill him. He just smirked at me and said that he sent me to seduce Skinner not his...not you. I acted as if I didn't care and asked if I had time to clean my apartment. He said yes. I just grabbed a few things and ran. I had this crazy hope that since I screwed up; I wouldn't be any use to him. I thought he'd let me go." Alex swallowed hard. 

Walter said, "How come you didn't tell him, Alex? You did exactly what he said. You succeeded."

Alex replied, "Because I'm an idiot, that's why..."

Walter grinned at that and said, "I don't think so. I think you were in love with me, at least a little."

Alex said, "Maybe. Kind of against the rules, loving both of you."

Mulder snorted and said, "Walter's the only one that plays by the rules and even he plays fast and loose with them."

Walter tried an AD glare, but he was seriously out of uniform for it. He moved closer to Alex, needing to hold him. Needing the warm living glory of him close enough to feel his heart beat. He buried his face in Alex's hair, breathing him in. Alex turned and offered his mouth; lips open slightly. Walter wanted that kiss to never end. He wanted them to share one breath, one pulse. Alex's leg came up to rest on his side. He said urgently, "I need some one inside me. I need it now."

Walter inhaled sharply again and said, "Mulder..."

Mulder's eyes held guilt and pain. He said, "Walter...he might not want me."

Alex said, "There's nothing you could ever do, Mulder, to stop me from wanting you or Walter. It's the one thing that he can't take from me. I won't let him know that I still can love anyone. That's mine. It's mine."

Walter heard more than the words. He shuddered, remembering how the collar had slipped over him, turned into a noose that had him twisting in Spender's hands. And Spender had needed him reasonably intact. Walter wondered where Spender had found Alex Krycek? What would Spender do with someone who wasn't important to his schemes? What had he done to this beautiful, fascinating creature?

Walter wanted Alex's lips. He wanted to kiss him, to move his hand and feel the blood surging, the flesh hot and quivering. Later, he might want more. Right now, he wanted to give pleasure more then he wanted to receive. Or maybe he just wanted to make love to Alex Krycek once more. To taste the sweetness, to feel that strong body enraptured by his touch.

Alex accepted his kiss, grabbed the back of his head to keep it. He opened his mouth, a wordless keen of desire quavering from the lovely mouth. Walter stroked down the hard muscled sides, petted the belly, soft and tender skin shivering over solid strength. 

Walter could see the focus on Mulder's face as he prepared Alex. It was pure Mulder; intense, so single minded that his world narrowed to the single idea, sensation, being that held his attention. Alex had closed his eyes; now they fluttered back open, the pupils dilating with reaction. Walter let his hand encase Alex's cock. Alex's hand found Walter's in return, smiling slightly at the involuntary shudder that resulted.

Walter savored the familiar weight, the pulsing heat in his hand. Alex's hips jerked, and pushed forward. Mulder emitted a moan, strange wordless cry as he plundered Alex to the depths. Alex shuddered as his body shook with the force of Mulder's thrusts. It was incredible, overwhelming, seeming as if each man was immersed in the others, one yearning, pleasure dazed entity.

Falling away from each other was pure grief. Walter felt a weight settle on him as if he had been shorn of wings, an eagle plummeted forever to earth. And Alex wept. Sobs shook him silently. Can devils cry? Does Satan weep?

Mulder wrenched from the bed, ran to the bathroom, and slammed the door. Alex's hand had reached for him. Now his left hand outstretched, empty, bereft. Walter hid his face in the pillows, unwilling to deal with this. He thought he could have just another taste. He had sworn to himself that it could not have been that good, not as his imagination whispered to him in regret-filled nights.

Walter felt the bed sag as Alex rolled to his feet. He turned his face and saw Alex reaching for his clothing. Mulder opened the bathroom door, still naked, a lean, golden figure in the soft light of the room. He was tousled, lips still swollen and shining from kisses. Alex grabbed his clothes. He started to dress with shaking hands. 

Mulder took a deep breath and asked, "Alex, wait, do you need any money?"

Alex's mouth drew into a slash of white. Red spots caught fire over his cheeks. His voice held an inferno of emotion. "Don't." he said. "Just kill me if you want revenge. Don't take this from me. I know it made you sick to touch me again. To fuck the traitor. Just let me go. This was a mistake."

Mulder seemed to move across the room in an instant. He took the bundle of clothing from Alex's hand. He said, "Don't go. This was never supposed to happen. Couldn't happen in the real word. So let's play, Alex. Let's have this fantasy. Walter and I have two more days. Stay with us. For two days, let's be lovers. Let's have it all, Alex."

Slowly, Alex turned to Walter. His huge glowing eyes asked a question.

Walter nodded and said, "Yes, Alex. We should declare a truce. A time out from all the bullshit life throws at us. I can't promise you forever, Alex. Although there was a time..."

Alex nodded and let Mulder take his clothes. Mulder said, "Alex, Walter, there's a huge whirlpool bath in there. Plenty of room for all of us, just a fun kind of crowded."

Mulder reached forward, tilting Alex's delicate chin upward. His fingertips traced the mouth, invited the corners to curve into a smile. He leaned forward, kissing each eyelid and finally suckling on Alex's mouth. Alex was like a serpent, caught by a charmer's flute. He swayed and followed Mulder as if he always belonged there, one step behind.

Walter shook his head. They were all going to be burnt by it, but it was fire from heaven, an immolation of ecstasy. He was older and wiser, but damned if he would forego this, not even for the ashes of tomorrow.

In the morning, the sky seemed to have fallen right down to earth. The air was heavy with rain, a wind blowing gusts like sea spray with a force to penetrate to their skin. Alex paused for a minute in the rain, looking as if he was part of it with those changing eyes. His face was soft and open as he gazed skyward. Walter waited outside, water running in rivulets from his nearly hairless head. He shivered as it ran down his collar. Mulder sat in the car, brooding upon the vision until with as deliberate grin he honked the horn loudly. Alex startled and said, "Sorry, I was thinking about something someone used to say. Just that cliche about a rain like this. That everything seems new again. I wish it was true."

Mulder said, "We have a pact, Alex. No brooding. No regrets."

Alex smiled and slid into the middle of the front seat. He said, "Sorry. I'll remember."

As swiftly as the rain started, it stage exited. Sun danced in sky for a moment, twin rainbows a breath-taking vision in the sky. It was just as they were leaving the small restaurant after breakfast. All three of them stopped to stare. As if in some secret harmony, first Alex and then Mulder leaned back against him. Walter didn't care if people stared and then looked away. Right now he had that transitory beauty above; Earth smelling raw and sweet from the rain; the weight of two loves warming him. If it could just stop...right here and now. 

The sun asserted itself and in it's harsher power, the colors faded and the celestial vision was gone. Alex drew a deep breath and turned. Mulder's eyes sought his and then Walter's. The rainbow wasn't gone. It was in those eyes, those oddly similar eyes. Alex's sea change green and Mulder's moonstone eyes that changed with every light. Walter shook his head and said, "Next I'm going to be writing romantic poetry." He glanced around and asked, "What shall we do next before we go back to bed?"

Alex shrugged and looked to Mulder who grinned maniacally and said, "I want to go to that place that we passed when we drove in from Seattle."

"The fireworks?" Walter asked incredulously.

"Yeah." Mulder declared, lower lip readying for sulk-missile mode.

Alex said, "Great. One Vietnam veteran with PTSD. One somewhat used spy with shoot now, ask later reflexes, and a bunch of explosives. It's a good idea, Mulder. A very good idea."

It took a while to get used to it. The Indian Mardi Gras was sprawled in the shade of a huge old government building. Mulder gazed up at the almost crumbling structure and asked, "What the hell is that?"

Alex answered, "Used to be a Indian TB hospital. Then the state took it over for a jail for kids. A decade or so back, the Puyallup's took it back in an armed insurrection. It's supposed to be haunted, Mulder. Maybe you can open an X-File on it."

Mulder jumped as a resounding boom sounded from a near-by field. He asked, "How the hell do you know that? Is this like DOT statistics?"

Alex smiled and said, "No, a friend told me. She went in with them. Built Molotov's in the basement and, other than a nasty remark on an obscure FBI file; got clean away with it."

Mulder said, "Sounds like someone you'd have for a friend. Come on. I want to look at this stuff."

Walter had never seen anything exactly like this. Sixty-six plywood stands, painted garishly, sporting outrageously flashy names, housed Indians in every shade of mixture, all loudly hawking their patriotic wares. Cars, vans, and pick up trucks parked in jagged rows on a suffering lawn. Apparently, some of the participants were living on the grounds judging from the welter of small children, dogs, and camping gear scattered about. The hilly grounds swarmed with families, kids, and hordes of raucous teenagers. At intervals, explosions that did cause Walter to be tempted to hit the ground went off. Apparently these were not even legal in this fool's circus. Tribal cops, clad in brown uniforms ran in the direction of the sounds, most often returning empty handed.

A few other things intruded among the munitions. Indians wandered around selling odd bits of jewelry, mostly things that even Walter knew weren't local. Alex led them to a stand from which emitted hot dog and relish smells. He scorned those however, and instead he purchased delicious smelling slabs of bread, golden brown, steaming from the deep fat fryer, which constantly churned out the treats.

Alex slathered his with butter and strawberry jam, closing his eyes in an expression uncomfortably close to the one he wore when he was about to come. "Oh, this is so good." He purred.

Mulder shrugged and took a bite of his. He said, "Hey, it is good! Beats a tortilla anyway."

Walter added up possible calories and decided what the hell. He bit. It was bread, slightly sweet, but so good in its' airy fat-laden molecules. The jam was homemade too and the butter real. Maybe it was a secret Indian weapon meant to wipe out the white population from excess cholesterol.

Mulder wanted to return after dark. He'd asked about the show they'd seen when they arrived. There was another one tonight. Walter gave in gracefully. A happy Mulder was a sexy Mulder. Alex didn't seem to care. Walter had the impression that Alex would have been content on an iceberg in Antarctica if all three of them were there.

Teddy had arranged a cottage for them...it was her own or partially her own on a time- share agreement. Teddy was all for romance if she could get more than the going rate to be the landlord for it. Walter let Mulder pay for it. Mulder had an allowance to supplement his salary. Walter had only his paycheck and a substantial amount of that went for alimony that he was still too guilt ridden about his failed marriage to fight.

  
Teddy's theatrical tendencies didn't extend to her private life. The cottage had been restored to its later Victorian roots. She had updated the plumbing and the furniture that was not genuinely antique fit in well and was comfortable. No Victorian could have done more than have a guilty dream about the hot tub, which was discreetly screened behind cedar lattice, but Teddy was a hedonist by nature as well as by profession.

They undressed their way to the bedroom. Walter kicked open the door and pulled both of the younger men into the sturdy four- poster bed. Alex fluttered his fan of dark lashes and said, "Oh, sir, I think you mean to have your will with me."

"Damn right," Walter replied. "Lubricant, condom!" he growled like the marine he used to be at Mulder who sprawled with the air of a voyeur about to have the thrill of his life.

"Just lie there." Walter said, arranging Alex like a doll upon the green plush of the spread. Alex's face glistened with a faint sheen of sweat. His mouth opened slightly, white teeth showing slightly. His eyes devoured Walter.

Walter dragged Mulder down and said, "Get to work. Get him ready for me. But don't make him come, Mulder, or there will be hell to pay."

Walter knelt upon the bed, hands firmly on his knees, restraining him from temptation. Mulder leaned down, a Prince Charming about to wake the enchanted beauty. Alex drew Mulder's head closer, eyes glistening as his lips parted for a kiss. Mulder began at Alex's lips, plundered them until both of them were gasping for breath. He paused to look at Walter, hazel eyes teasing. His expression was erotically charged and amused like a naughty satyr about pounce and ravish, but Alex looked very willing to be ravished. 

Alex arched his neck as Mulder nibbled and nuzzled his way along the helplessly offered expanse. Walter gripped his knees in an even firmer hold. There was just something about that; the way Alex had of submissively offering his throat like that...it had always given Walter something more. A feeling of power that made it all the more wild and delicious.

Watching Mulder with Alex was a delight. Still Walter came to the end of forbearance. He chose a side to explore the sweet, salty taste of him. Alex arched, gasping as something felt especially good, eyes sometimes fluttered closed then opened to devour the sight of them. Frantically, Alex pulled at Walter's head with the back of his hand. "Kiss me. Kiss me, damn it," he demanded.

Alex's hungry murmur reached Walter's ears like a small orgasm. "I want you. I want to be yours. I want to belong to you."

Mulder's hand slid smoothly along Walter's cock. He had the condom in his mouth and bent low to slide it on. Incredible mouth the man had. Walter had never quite mastered this maneuver although he had once hired a whore to demonstrate it five times in a row. Mulder could have been an x-rated icon for safer sex. Walter felt Mulder's mouth quiver. Mulder was laughing at him. Walter said, "I'll get you later. DON"T MAKE ME COME!"

Mulder sprawled next to Alex, fingertips playing over Alex's quivering flesh. Walter didn't ask if his lover was ready. He was obviously almost too prepared. Walter noticed that Alex was easier to breech. He didn't want to think about why. It didn't matter for now. Later, later, after this idyll, then they would have to sort things out.

Alex's strong legs pressed their eager weight along Walter's back. He felt almost dizzy as he took his lover this way. In the past they had done other things more often. But now, this seemed like some solemn ritual, reclaiming a long lost and precious territory. Nothing like this. Nothing like their bodies united into one flesh. There was a wonder here; that he could crave this so. There was something that drew him back, something that called him to the scent of male flesh, the penetration of bodies as hard muscled and powerful as his own. And there was no mystery to craving Alex...Eros had created him. Spun him from some Attic fragment to evoke ancient delights.

Faster now, losing control, lost in his own pleasure and going to the edge...and over. Wishing he could have just stayed there. Three heartbeats from paradise.

Walter opened his eyes. Mulder's face hovered for a moment and then a kiss...deeper, more heart felt. Not substituting any more for a missing part. But this was hell. It wouldn't last. Alex was the catalyst. They were three lost fragments of one perfect soul. Yet the realist in Walter knew that Alex couldn't stay. Not until all the old men were dead. Not until every dark conspiracy withered in the light of justice.

But for now, he had him. Alex was right here. Walter watched Mulder and Alex make love. Slow and tender in no hurry for completion. No regrets this time.

They spent the rest of the after noon sleeping in a tangled heap of satiated flesh. Walter woke at Mulder's movement and followed him into the bathroom. Mulder sat on the toilet seat and said, "Walter, I know we're not supposed to talk about this ending, but we have to do something. He can't go on like this...selling himself. It's killing him. And besides, what if he runs into one of the Smoker's people. I have money. I could support him if we could think of some place safe."

Walter turned on the shower; he and Mulder needed one and the sound would cover their conversation. Walter washed Mulder's back, admiring it for the thousandth time. It was long and narrow, graceful like an ionic column in human form. Both Alex and Mulder sometimes made him feel ursine, brutish, but they seemed to like his broader build just fine. 

Walter sighed as Mulder returned the favor, kissing his back and lapping a fiery line down his spine as a finale. The solution struck him a moment later. "Thailand..." he said. "One of my buddies got his discharge papers, but he never went state side. He found himself a beautiful Thai wife and is richer than sin. Runs a curio factory with his hand in every other pot except the one that gave him his start up capital. He was asking me the last time we spoke if I might know a retired agent who would be interested in working as his head of security. Alex could do that and it wouldn't be a place where he was expected. Tony lives so far back in the jungle that the natives still think they have a king."

Mulder nodded and said, "We just have to sell Alex on the idea."

They explained the idea to Alex in the hot tub. He frowned at them, the v-shaped wrinkle that punctuated the ridiculous cuteness of his nose, forming a deeper line. He said, "I don't need to be paid off, Mulder."

Walter rolled his eyes. Proud and stubborn was a description well suited to each of them. However stupid wasn't. He said, "Alex, how long before Spender catches up with you? What would it take to break you? Don't tell me that nothing would. I know about him. I know that's his game and he will do it, Alex. Do this for us. It won't be forever. That man is going to take a fall at some point and then we'll all be free."

Alex sighed and said, "This is a real job? Won't he check my credentials?"

Walter grinned, leaning back against the padded sides of the hot tub. He said, "I'm your last supervisor of record. Who better to vouch for you? And to be honest, Tony has a shady past. His fortune was built on Thai-stick, not on tea plantations as his shiny brochures say."

Alex's eyes crinkled in amusement. "So Walter wasn't always on the straight and narrow?"

Walter moved Alex's hand to his cock, which was defeating the heat with mercurial rising of its own. "That feel straight to you?"

Alex patted it and said, "Hmmm, no, not narrow either." He laughed, a rich rippling sound. Walter had only heard Alex laugh once or twice before. It was well worth hearing over and over.

Mulder said, "Hey, stop playing. It's late. Alex's stomach has been rumbling for an hour and I still want to see the firework's display."

"Fireworks!" Alex commented. "Huh, some people prefer making their own. But I am hungry."

Walter sighed at that. No doubt. Alex hadn't been eating steadily on the run. Despite what he said to Mulder about not being ashamed, it was obvious that he hadn't "worked" more then it took to keep him in travel money and with the bare necessities. They decided to visit the waterfront, chose a seafood restaurant with a decent menu and a beautiful view. Alex finished his seafood platter long before Walter and Mulder had managed a third of their servings. He occupied himself cadging bites from Mulder and pondering the dessert menu, choosing chocolate covered strawberries and freshly made Loganberry ice cream on the side. 

Watching Alex eat a chocolate covered strawberry was an x-rated activity. That sweet innocent appearing mouth suckled on the chocolate, nibbling it away from the red lush fruit. His tongue flickered to catch every crumb of the chocolate. His lips grew slick with the juice of the ripe berries. His eyes closed to concentrate on the taste.

Mulder leaned sharp elbows on the table, unabashedly watching Alex eat. Walter pretended to drink the dry white wine that he had been assured was excellent. Either dry had acquired a new meaning or he was thirsting for something of a wilder vintage then he drank. Alex awoke to their scrutiny...the waitress was also staring raptly. He asked, "What?"

Walter growled, "In some eastern countries, chocolate covered strawberries must be eaten only in the privacy of the harem."

Alex laughed again and said, "I'll keep that in mind the day I acquire a harem."

Mulder replied, "I don't think Walter had you owning a harem in mind, Alex. Do you know any belly dance moves?

Alex smirked and said, "None that can be danced in public."

Walter dumped money on the table. The waitress was still licking her lips as she watched Alex stretch six foot two of green-eyed male beauty. Walter grabbed two elbows and marched HIS harem out the door.

It wasn't dark yet so they took a walk along the beach. It was a low tide and a thousand tidal pools held microcosms of life. Alex bent over one puddle-sized universe and said, "Alien life...we really don't have to look far to find it." He pointed out one almost transparently shelled fingernail sized crab and said, "Look at this little guy...he's as different from us as any science fiction writer could imagine."

  
Walter watched Alex gently nudge the tiny creature back to the relative safety of a clump of bulbous-rooted red seaweed. Walter said, "Not you too, Alex. You don't really believe that they're out there?"

Alex stood up and said, "Mulder may have some bizarre ideas, but he's right. Only they're not out there. They're here. If you're going to really take the conspiracy down, you have to understand that."

Walter shook his head. He understood a lot about life and death. He understood betrayal, heroism, and all the shades in between. But he wouldn't believe in aliens until he saw incontrovertible truth with his own eyes.

Alex stood back up, dusting sand off his hands and said, "Okay, Walter, I guess I wouldn't love you if you didn't need to be shown before you believe. And I wouldn't love Mulder if he didn't want to drive to the end of the rainbow to find the pot of gold."

Mulder said, "And you, Alex, you're our middle ground which is why you are going to sit on the sidelines for the rest of this war. I want to think of you in tropical whites, wearing a straw skimmer, and drinking ice tea on some veranda."

"Waiting for my men to come home from the front?" Alex asked, "Don't know that I can do that." He smiled, offered a hand to each man and said, "I'll try though. We'll see what happens."

They strolled along the beach, no one seeming to overtly mind their entwined hands. Above their heads, the eroding clay like heights bore jumbled graffiti, some of it going back to the fifties. Mulder climbed a short way up and added their names to an unscathed place. He added "erastes" after the three names. 

Looking up at his work, Mulder said, "I come from a long line of graffiti artists. Why my ancient Trojan ancestor was the first one to write, "Greeks go home:" on the Trojan horse."

Walter snorted and Alex just shook his head. "So that's what they teach at Oxford?"

Mulder said, "Don't complain. You liked the results of some of the other extracurricular classes."

Alex said, "Could have learned the same thing in reform school."

Mulder, amused, asked, "and did you?"

Alex replied, "not telling."

Mulder said, "Hey, the fire works should start soon. We should get back to the reservation."

Alex shrugged and rolled his eyes at Walter. Oh, well, it could have been an UFO landing place instead. 

Mulder wanted to be close and Walter wanted to be far. Alex was the tie-breaker and he said, "Not too close. I want to see fireworks not interact with them."

Mulder watched the fireworks. Alex watched the people and Walter watched the two of them. It was dark enough in between flashes to hold hands. They sat on their borrowed blanket and watched the phoenixes, the dragons, the butterflies and even more exotically named things. In the end, Walter enjoyed it. It wasn't so much the fireworks as it was just doing something for no reason, something ordinary and human as this. In the end, wasn't this what it was all about?

Not only saving the beautiful ones like Alex and the brilliant ones like Mulder...no, it was about the guy in the grimy white tee shirt with a runny-nosed toddler, collapsed in sleep on his shoulders. It was for the overweight lady walking her dog through the chaos and grinning like an idiot at the spectacles of light. Walter took it all in, not humanity at its finest, but still worth experiencing, still fascinating. If Mulder and Krycek were right, they had a war to fight a hell of a lot more important than the 'police action" in Vietnam. A war that would put all of these people at risk.

Finally, the announcer said that it was the grand finale. They watched it and then joined the rest of the cars that bottlenecked the strip of road feeding to I-5. Alex fell asleep on Walter's shoulder, looking as sweetly grimy as that toddler (he'd indulged in another strawberry jam slathered piece of the fried bread and wore traces on his cheek.) Walter adjusted the weight of his lover's head and stared down at the elfin tip of one petite ear, the perfect wing of his brow. 

Alex woke up as they threaded down the gravel road to the steep driveway. He stirred, raised his head and smiled at Walter. He and Mulder went to play in the bathroom as soon as they entered the house. Walter called Tony. The man saw through his explanation. He said, "Walt-Boy, is this somebody special?"

Walter hesitated and then said, "I think so, Tony. We have some history and I would like to turn that into having a future. But he can do the work for you. He was an FBI agent."

Tony said, "Okay, I still owe you. Besides, you were always a good judge of character. I need someone soon though."

Walter said, "Yes, he needs to be out of the line of fire right away anyway."

Tony laughed and said, "So, does this mean that you are finally going to visit?"

Walter said, "Yes, I'll want to visit. And I'll bringing another friend."

Tony said, "Two of them? Hmm, you must still have it, Walter."

Walter prolonged the call a moment to be social, but he could see Alex waiting in the doorway, wearing nothing but a smile...and Mulder trying to pull him into the bedroom.

The next morning brought phone calls, arrangements and some transactions on the gray side. Alex disappeared and came back with a passport, bearing his picture, but not his name.

Tony would get the work permit for him and probably yet another name. Walter trusted that his war-buddy understood that he was agreeing to something dangerous, but Tony was always the one to volunteer for the LRP's in the most dangerous territory. He liked a shade of danger in his life. He said that it reminded him that he could lose it any day.

Mulder had managed to wire himself enough cash to cover Alex's counterfeit identification, the trip, and some clothing. They went shopping. Went back to the cottage to pack and to make love one last time. 

The weather had turned again. You couldn't see anything but the buckets of water falling down and the streams beneath the wheels. The rain isolated them giving an eerie feeling to their drive. Alex was silent. He clung to Mulder who for once had not insisted upon driving, but one of his hands rested on Walter's thigh, holding on to him with a near bruising force.

Alex took a deep breath as they reached the airport. He shook his head and said, "I don't want to go."

Walter pulled into the airport-parking garage and followed the winding curves until they arrived at a dimly lit area away from the preferred parking. He and Mulder turned to Alex nearly at the same time, laughing as Alex tried to turn both ways at once to receive their kisses. Walter managed to capture their lover's lips first. His fingers tenderly brushed the wayward lock of hair from Alex's forehead. "This isn't the end, love."

Mulder had waited, but his kiss was longer, so long that both men fell apart winded. Mulder's long sensitive fingers stroked a tear from Alex's cheek. He set his jaw and looked the other way before saying, "You had better go, Alex. You had better go now while I still have the courage to let you."

Alex nodded. He grabbed his duffel bag and started walking, nearly running away from the car. Walter started the car. Their own flight was hours away. They'd go some place and try to forget. But Walter knew they never would. He looked at Mulder and said, "This isn't the end. We did the right thing. With the money you gave him and Tony's protection, Alex can stay away from the Smoker. And it won't always be like this....it has to get better."

As Walter drove away, a man stepped out of the shadow. Tendrils of smoke followed him as if he had risen from the depths of hell. He smiled and walked back toward the airport, followed by his hounds. He had followed the FBI agents out of curiosity, but he had reaped an unexpected benefit. He smirked. Perhaps Alex Krycek would be more valuable alive than dead. If nothing else, Spender had some very amusing ideas for when he had his puppet back on his strings...

  
END

 

* * *

 

Please take this seriously:

Warnings: No character death, but rape, slavery, and sexual abuse including a sex scene that squicked me and I wrote it. Non consensual Het sex. Serious angst, betrayal and misery.

These are not happy stories at all.

You may want to skip them and read only the fourth in the series that resolves this angst festival.

Title: Where have You Gone?  
Author/pseudonym: Ursula  
Fandom: X-Files  
Pairing: Alex Krycek (The rest is too difficult to explain)  
Rating: NC-17  
Status: New  
Archive: Anywhere, as a complete story. If you have a constructive critique and wish to use a portion, contact me directly.  
E-mail address for feedback: or   
Series/Sequel: Is this story part of a series: Sequel to "A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall"   
Followed by: The Face of the Executioner: (AKA Silver)  
Other websites: My page at RATB, thanks to Ned & Leny: http://www.squidge.org/terma/ursula/ursula.htm  
Disclaimers: Gasp, maybe I am CC! This is almost as cruel as Tunguska! But in case I'm not, it's unfair, but they do belong to him and Fox.  
Notes: Poor Isha, you asked for this sequel, but remember that saying about being careful of what you ask. DDlover, you asked for a dark story. This and the third story are as dark as I go.  
Warnings: No character death, but rape, slavery, and sexual abuse including a sex scene that squicked me and I wrote it.   
Time Frame: After Scully's return and before Anasazi.

Please take this seriously:  
Warnings: No character death, but rape, slavery, and sexual abuse including a sex scene that squicked me and I wrote it. Non consensual Het sex. Serious angst, betrayal and misery.

These are not happy stories at all.

You may want to skip them and read only the fourth in the series that resolves this angst festival.

* * *

Where have you gone?  
by Ursula

Pain, and pain, and pain...licking at him, consuming him, until his world was just the creeping agony from his feet, the bruises pulping him from head to toes. No, no, no way to go...no escape. He screamed.

That dissipated voice, smoke cured, oh father of lies...Alex curled in a knot, praying to some unknown God, some entity that had never shown him kindness, for relief. Rescue me. Rescue me. 

Turning in his thoughts to strong hands calloused from boxing, hardly a bureaucrat's soft touch in that strength....to elegant fingers, moving on him, claiming him. Skinner's hands...Mulder's hands...Alex gasped as a fresh inundation of agony dragged him from the place he went to hide.

Spender's nicotine stained fingers grasped his chin in an implacable grip.

"You belong to me. I own you."

"No" Alex denied. "Fuck you! Fuck you!"

It was not Spender. That was the only relief. Hands spread him, a hard, huge cock taking him until his body released him and sent him to a better place.

Adrift, snug in Walter's arms, Mulder's sharp nose pressing against his chest and his warm breath gently exhaling against his nipple. A half forgotten voice saying, "and he sailed across the sea to the very best place of all." Her voice, mother, beautiful sad sweet mother with her hair tumbling in chestnut waves to her waist, her green eyes of which Alex thought his the palest reflection....murdered mother. Murdered father...regrets too late, his beloved wife dead, Kolya, his daughter and Alex, his son, taken, taken, taken...

Alex burst back into reality with a sob. Days of pain...days and nights of screaming until his throat seared with the fires of his agony until there was no cell in his body that remembered anything but the feeling of pain just finished, pain to come. Finally, just breaking, here he was, clay...malleable clay. Alex waited on his knees, empty, waiting to be told who he was. 

"Whore." Spender said, fingers turning Alex's face from side to side. "Weak minded, useless whore."

Whore. Alex nodded gratefully. He understood his role. He knew who he was. It was good. 

Safely numb, Alex drifted through his days. Now, the pain was far away. He didn't have to see it. Spender still wasn't happy, but Alex didn't know how to make it right. 

"Animal, mindless, useless animal..." Spender critiqued. "Well, considering the investment, we may as well use what's left. You men are so crude. I said mold him, forge a better tool and you broke him instead. Stupid fools, you will be punished."

With opaque jadeite eyes, Alex reflected on a gun extended. So bereft to know it was not for him, no escape...no way out. 

The body of the man who had directed the kabuki play of Alex's destruction fell to the floor. 

"Have that trash removed," snapped Spender. "Clean the boy up, make him presentable. If I can't use his mind, I can use his body."

_____

Alex moved gracefully. His mind played an operating program for the machine of his body. "The elbow just so..." his instructor said.

His arm had been so tired as he poured the wine for the thousandth time. He watched in the mirror and corrected a minute imbalance.

"Now that was lovely. You may rest." The mustached man in the tuxedo complimented.

___

"Don't slobber over it. Delicate yet firm. Don't just hold it with your fingers. My cock is a jewel, the most precious thing that you ever felt. Taste the flavor. Look up at me that charming way you have of glancing through your lashes, Alex. You are grateful for this. You are happy to be allowed to serve. Now, worship the sides with your lips. Careful of teeth. A few men like a bit of roughness. Most don't. Don't touch with teeth unless you are told to do so."

Alex allowed his throat to go slack as his master angled a dildo deeply inside. He didn't gag and teacher didn't shock him. He felt a glow as he realized he had finally mastered this. The dildo was replaced with his teacher's cock. Alex dreamily worked on it. His tongue explored as his fingers caressed. He moaned as the cock sank into him, allowing the vibration in his throat to please the man. He neatly swallowed the come and finished by bowing his head prettily with his soft hair against the firm, hairy thigh. His arms loosely encircled as if clasping an icon... a martyr seeking salvation. "Alex, Alex, good boy..." 

The master's hand petted his head. Alex veiled his eyes and said, "Thank you, sir."

__  
   
Alex poured the wine as he had been taught. The man he served squatted in a sheikdom between Africa and the Middle East. He was a plump brown man with a pretty round face, decorated with a silly thin mustache. His kingdom was an acrid, burning hold in the rocky hell of a mountain range. It wasn't much. Over looked for centuries until the vast eye of this modern era had found the hidden treasure of this poverty-stricken domain. Now, it was becoming poor again and its hardy goat herders had given way to ghastly, dying men covered with sores. They squatted on small land holdings, homes built of the tailings of the uranium mines. And they died slowly. But the man in the castle lived well off the proceeds of their misery. But now he needed more. Much more.

Spender had his own use for the meager pickings left after the spoils were taken. Hostile land and nations antagonistic to both of the major powers made this the perfect place to hide. Under the guise of mercy, the Consortium doctors would choose who lived, who died and how. Each ignorant, helpless native became a tattooed subject in the experiments they performed.

This man, this greedy bastard, was ready to sell them out. Money, wealth such as he had grown to expect, was in his grasp. He pulled Alex onto his lap and his greasy mouth ravished Alex's. There was no art to perform. He didn't want a sexual dance. He wanted to dominate. To own. To touch Alex with a fury of lust and quench his desire.

"Suck me." The man demanded. Alex knelt on the floor as the man pushed his western styled trousers down.

The musky odor nearly made him gag. Beneath the tailored garments, the man was unwashed. His crude male scent smelled like the randy stench of a tomcat. Yet Alex smiled and his tongue painted a picture of lust on the substantial flesh of that cock. Rough hands grabbed his hair and forced him to take it deep. He thrust, crude lunges that would have gagged Alex if that hadn't been trained out of him. The man didn't take long. He gasped and groaned deep as his come filled Alex's throat

Alex knelt ravished on the floor, waiting to be given permission to rise. It didn't come. The man said, "The money and him. Seal the bargain with this green-eyed devil. I won't let you have my country without this man to sweeten my pact."

Passively, his hands resting on his knees, Alex crouched like a bitch at his master's feet. Although he understood what they were talking about, it didn't matter. His body just was. It had long ceased to be anything to be concerned about. All that mattered was the last little kernel of Alex left hidden in the fortress of his mind. And in that shady pleasure dome, Alex waited in a huge white bed with linens that smelt of sweet grasses and herbs, of clean sunlight, and just the faintest scent of sweet Mulder and spicy Skinner. 

The bargaining went on and on. Alex was weary, but he kept his back straight and his head gracefully poised, just short of bowing. Statue. He was a statue of flesh, made to be enjoyed. Nothing else mattered except pleasing his masters.

Finally, the snarl of Spender's voice. Alex flinched. Spender said, "All right, you drive a hard bargain. Take him. But be wary. If he ever wakes, he can be treacherous as my dear Agent Mulder and poor noble Assistant Director Skinner have found in the past."

_____

Empty handed, as lacking in possessions as any animal, Alex walked behind his new master with uncomprehending obedience. He held his mind vacant, on hold until he was told what was wanted. This was nirvana as much as Alex's karma would allow. Behind the catatonic freeze of his will, he refused to consider whether this was better or worse than Spender. Let him drift. Let him remain empty of thoughts, speculations, hopes, and even vacant of dread. 

Alex blanked out what others called the man. Master, his name was master and Alex served him. The mansion perched on a cliff like a vulture surveying its domain. Once a craggy fortress as impenetrable, as the old man of the mountain that had resided here could make it. In another life, Alex would have been as curious as Mulder. He would have wanted to investigate the ruins. See if it could truly have been the home of the father of assassins, his patron saint in a fashion. His namesake at least in the profession that Spender had intended him to fit like a sleek weapon in leather gloved hand.

But that was another country and that man was as good as dead.

Other slaves, less or more fortunate, served him. They pumiced the rough skin of his elbows and knees, smoothed the scars on his feet. His silken hair was conditioned until it gleamed and glowed like ebony inlaid with rubies. His lashes were combed and exclaimed over. His parts, hardly private any longer, were cleaned and oiled as if they were jewels. He exercised, danced and trained, to sleek the body his master owned. Soothing hands massaged and made him supple for his master's pleasure.

It was pleasant in its way. This new master was not cruel. He had no expectations beyond the use of Alex's body and skills. And often, as Alex waited to see if his master would experience the renewal of his desire, the round olive face would wear a look of content. 

Best yet, were the times when the master held a hookah and encouraged Alex to deeply inhale the acrid yet welcome fumes and drift to his private heaven. Alex felt alive at those times when master took him after the meandering visions yielded again to lust. He cried and writhed with genuine passion as he dreamed that he lay again in a bed in a faux southern mansion, surrounded by two lovers, safe with Fox and Walter, home in their strong arms.

But things changed. Master's people were very unhappy. The uranium sickness was bad enough, but the new plague was worst of all. Not a family was spared. Every one had at least one member taken to the shining, well-guarded laboratory and returned emaciated and dying, screaming about black worms. 

Because they thought he was an idiot, they whispered about it as they combed his hair and cleaned beneath his nails. Master was not wise. He should have spared the families of his soldiers and guards. Loyalty could be bought. Alex knew the different denominations of the coins. Money, patriotism, fear, lust...and best of all the enervating fear for someone you loved. The fear that caved Skinner's mighty heart and allowed Spender to lead him here and there. The fear that ...oh sister, oh sister, you would despise me for what I have done in the name of saving you...

But Master's coin was brute power and his belief that he was born divine.

He bled like any other man. Alex didn't fight the men who pulled him from the master's bed. He watched blank faced as they held Master squealing and drew their sharp knives across his brown throat. Alex watched the dark eyes lose their glow as men stripped off the rings that studded master's fat stubby fingers.

"Kill him?" one of the ragged rebels gasped out.

Alex waited. What ever happened was just another wind blowing his life about as if he was a helpless leaf, fallen and fading. Not the tree, nothing vital... just something to be used and discarded at will.

One man said, "He slept in silk while our children starved."

Another said, "Kill him!"

A different one said, "Have him. We could all have him. Just like kings, we could fuck the king's whore."

Another voice calm and strong said, "No, we won't kill him. We won't fuck him. He's valuable. Just like the rubies. Just like the gold and all the rest of the king's toys. He's loot. I'll find a buyer. Look at him. He's medicine, food, and guns on the hoof."

All right. Alex made no attempt to communicate with his captors. The leader of the group that took him from that bloody bedchamber was a tall man for his kind. Still not as tall as Alex, but a head above his starvation stunted compatriots. He had a long mustache, which draped theatrically down his face. His eyes flashed like black opals and his lips were red, red like rubies or blood. His nose was beautiful. A Mulder-like nose and lip. Almost, Alex would have liked to stay with him.

That night on the trail, the man kept Alex with him. Alex watched him undress and waited to be taken. Instead the man knelt and touched Alex's face. "Poor boy, I'd let you go if I dared. But the others, they'd rape you and kill you. And we do need the money."

Alex knew no answers, but the man was beautiful and he looked like Mulder in a dusky way. Alex turned to kiss the hand that cupped his cheek. He lay back and opened his arms. The man sighed and embraced him. 

The only words they spoke were simple. "What's your name? I'm Bakr."

Alex whispered, "Alex, I'm Alex."

The man was shy. He didn't know what to do. Alex touched him, sculptured him with his hands. His lips followed, tasting his honey-scented skin. Alex closed his eyes, thinking about Mulder, wishing it were really his tall thin lover, beautiful Mulder.

Each night of the week-long trip, that lean strong body moved over him at night when all the others slept. Alex was quiet. It was important to be silent about this even if Alex sometimes pretended that this man was Mulder, a dark dangerous man, full of moods and furious energy.

Another place. Alex washed gratefully, feeling the hot water soak away a weeks' grime. It felt good to bathe with his hands again. To have charge of his flesh without the intrusion of all those cloying touches.

The leader sighed and said, "So beautiful. I wish I could keep you, green-eyed slave, but the cause, the cause, I cannot forget the cause."

The kiss was sweet, the angling lips, steering around the obstacle of the nose. The man sighed and patted Alex's cheek. "I wonder about you. How did you come to be a slave here far from your home? Were you always mad or what sad events crushed your spirit and made you an empty bauble for man's desire?"

And Alex had no answer as he watched from the high tower of his citadel deep in his mind.

A strange place with bright lights. Alex heard laughter. He saw other naked men, naked women. Some of them offered themselves slyly to the hands of the masters and mistresses in the room. Alex shut himself away as always, neither protesting nor welcoming the probing hands, the pinches and fondling touches. 

"He's old." One said, "hardly worth the price. Let me make a reasonable offer."

Alex's owner drove that one off with a rough imprecations. He stood as he had been taught, displaying his nudity with as much grace and dignity as if he were a classical statue, immune to shame or interest in his own fate. 

The woman who stopped in front of him was old. She was dressed in a black evening gown. Her white hair was formed into a high cornet around her face that age and power had carved into a mask of arrogant certainty.

"This one." She said, her hand reaching to flick Alex's nipple. "This pretty boy. Wrap him up. I'll take him with me."

Alex didn't question her. His voice had grown rusty from disuse, but she wanted him to talk. So he talked. His mouth moved as he pretended to have opinions about things that he didn't give a damn about. 

She brought him back to America with a forged passport. She didn't ask him where he had come from or how he had come to be a slave in the Middle East. Her kind bought people anywhere no matter what passed as the government. Wealth was power and she was rich enough to be above the law. And if it was her pleasure to own someone, she owned him or her.

It was strange to wear a tailored suit. Strange to have people address him as if he was a real person. In the privacy of her home, Alex wore a dog collar and it was her pleasure to see him nude, but she carried him about with her, handsomely dressed in suits that reminded him of Mulder. She showed off his beauty and youth to others of her kind. Alex was obedient. He didn't want to be punished. Despite her soft words, he knew she was as cruel as Spender and there was no point in being hurt. 

Alex went here and there, driven by chauffeurs who doubled as guards. She was cautious. Wise of her as part of Alex was growing strong again. He was more aware as he gazed out windows and recognized American scenes. He could almost feel them.

Walter and Fox not really far away. If he could reach them, Alex deluded himself that he could stay. Spender surely thought that he was dead or lost.

Mistress had bought him a new suit. He caught a glance in the mirror, startling as he realized the sleek stylish creature next to her was he. Alex moved to his owner's side, fetching her a drink and capturing a canape that would not upset her digestion. 

The house that surrounded them was so ornate. It was a house out of a fairy tale, glittering with antique chandeliers and walled with exotic imported woods. Alex knew the floor beneath his feet was Italian marble, milled and fashioned at incredible expense. He almost felt honored that Mistress flaunted him here, considered him an accessory worthy of these riches.

"Smile." Mistress bade him in a whisper. "Smile and be charming or I'll have Tanner punish you. That's Portia Hall bearing down on us. I want her to die of envy."

Alex said, "Yes, Miriam." She liked to be called Miriam in public. 

"Where do you find these charming young men?" another woman asked, peering at Alex exactly as if he was for sale again.

Mistress smiled and fondled Alex's shapely arm through the polished luxury of his tuxedo. "I still have my charms." She declared. "I do believe the dear thing thinks that he is in love with me. Isn't that so, Alex?"

And Alex lowered his lashes and blushed becomingly. He softly replied, "Yes, Miriam. My beautiful dame sans merci. You know how I adore you although all you do is toy with my heart."

"Isn't he perfect?" Miriam asked

"Lovely," declared the other woman. She was as plump as Miriam was thin. Where Miriam's throat was turkey neck wizened, her throat was lost in wattles of flesh. She wore twice as many jewels, but Alex's appraising eye knew that hers were not worth half so much.

It was harder to be in a place such as this where Alex had to pay attention and pretend he was something other than a slave. But Alex made it through the evening. Mistress was pleased with him, very pleased.

Her bedchamber was easier. Alex writhed as he penetrated a lovely young girl while a muscle bound stud reamed him from behind. He gasped and groaned the way Miriam liked. He kept his eyes on her the way she had trained him to do. This was not about what the others felt. Not about pleasure for Alex. This was hers. This was for the mistress and Alex had no problem remembering that. 

Freshly bathed, Alex returned to the bed. The others had been dismissed. They worked for Miriam. She owned Alex. He moved to the mat beside the bed, very weary and wanting to rest.

"No, come here. That was excellent. That was perfect. Get in with me." The Mistress said.

Her body was naked beneath the covers. Alex moved the soft blankets aside. He licked his lips and knelt between her blue-white thighs. If he had loved her, he could have seen beyond the withered flesh. The smell of wicked old age and death would have saddened him instead of making him ill. As it was only his training kept him from gagging. Only the fear of pain kept him to his task.

Her sudden movements made him think that she was done. But when Alex looked up her eyes were bulging. Her claw like hands with the two hundred dollar manicure hiding the yellow age-blemishes scrabbled at her chest. Alex scrambled away. His mind no longer sharp, shattered with pain to the tenuous thing that it now was, was slow to react. 

Heart attack. He knew the signs from first aid classes. Automatically, like a good little agent, Alex picked up the phone and rang 911. He thumbed the intercom to summon the nurse next.

Turmoil filled the room. "She's dying!" the nurse shouted. 

Tanner, the muscle bound stud who ran the household as well as performing little plays for her, screamed orders.

Alex left the room. It took him a moment to realize it. He was in America. No one was watching. He reached up and removed the dog collar from his throat. 

In the confusion, it was easy to dress in the clothing she had bought him. He knew that some petty cash was kept in the kitchen. He found it in a box by the stove. The cook, clad in her nightgown, stumbled in and saw him with the money. She screamed, "What are you doing?"

Alex fumbled for the door and he ran. Ran as if the gates of hell were closing in his wake. Ran as if Mercury had given him wings. Ran until he realized there was no pursuit. He stumbled into a small park and fell flat on the lush wet grass. His fingers grasped deep into the soil. He was free. He was free!

Alex lay there breathing in the night air, aware of a breeze sighing through the trees. He was free. Oh God, this was what he wanted, wasn't it? He couldn't just lie here until he was arrested for vagrancy. They would take his fingerprints and Spender would have him back.

Alex sat up. He moved to a park bench. This was Rhode Island. Alex counted the petty cash. Not enough to get to Washington. He'd have to earn more. Well, he remembered how and he had all the capital he needed, sleeked over with the black leather jacket, the black denim jeans, the black silk and wool sweater. Just needed condoms and lube and he was back in business.

It was no different. He remembered how. Standing there, hand resting on his groin, eyes cat-slitted, and pink lips wet as if with desire. It felt funny to sell himself after being sold at such a price by others. Alex watched the man leave the cheap room. Not bad. One hundred dollars plus the rent for the room. Alex got up and washed, tossing the rough fabric of the towel into a corner of the bathroom with the other one that he had used to protect the sheet of the bed. It had been two days now. He found the buyers eager and he had enough now to make it to DC 

Alex wouldn't think beyond getting there. If they didn't want him, then, well, he knew how to buy the cure for his existence. 

Skinner had moved. An old couple that seemed quite happy with it and with each other now occupied the apartment Walter had shared with Sharon. Alex hung around and watched the couple through the window as they kissed each other's wrinkled cheeks, made their sparse lunch, and settled on the couch for the man to read to the woman, her gray head pillowed in his tweed clad lap. On the outside, looking in. That was Alex Krycek.

Hegel Place hadn't changed. Mulder probably hadn't even changed the locks. Not that it mattered. Alex picked the lock as easy as flicking a switch. Mmm, Mulder scent in the air here. Alex sniffed for a hint of Walter and thought he caught the familiar smell of him as well. He settled down to wait. An hour passed. Another. Mulder was working late or out of town on an assignment. Alex reached for the phone. Maybe he would risk calling Walter. He needed to see one of them. He needed to be real again and not this discarded toy.

Not long. Alex heard the knob turn and his sleeping heart woke with a jolt of pure joy. The door open and Alex scrambled for the window as he recognized Luis Cardinal and Gregor, one of Spender's disposable thugs. Behind them, a twirl of smoke announced the devil himself.

In the end, it hardly mattered that Alex fought. Cardinal slugged him in the face and Gregor finished him with a double fisted punch to his stomach. He soon lay on the floor of the car, Spender's unpolished shoe resting on his cheek. The old man had stepped in a wad of chewing gum and Alex stared at it with bleak fascination. Pink, banal, stupid accident. I feel as worthless as you. As crushed as you.

Spender said, "Well, somehow you escaped from the mess that your master made of things. Do you have any idea how much it's going to cost to replace the lab fixtures that those uncouth rebels destroyed? And here you are. What a story you must have to tell if only I care enough to listen."

Spender said, "On the bright side, you appear to have recovered. As much money as I have spent to train you and place you; I may as well try to recover a bit of it. Are you ready to work again? Luis can finish your training and I have a task or two that needs doing. Mulder and Scully have been poking their noses in places where they shouldn't. And they have taken up with unsavory acquaintances. I think it is a time for a little reminder, my dear. As for Skinner, he has notions of rebellion. I fear his close association with Mulder is contaminating him. Do you have any idea how distressed I felt when I found you had subverted the mission for your own romantic foolishness?"

Alex managed to lift his head. Slowly and carefully, he took aim and spat directly into Spender's face. 

 "Punish him!" Spender screamed, kicking at Alex's face. The pain drew him back from the gray edge of consciousness. 

'Kill me' He prayed, 'Just don't take me back."

Sudden cessation of motion. Cardinal grinning down at him. "Nighty, night, sweet Alex."

Alex heard the wail of sirens very near. Spender scrambled back into the car and said, "Just shoot him, Cardinal. I'll find a puppy for you to torture later."

Cardinal pulled the trigger. Alex jerked at the last moment as Gregor let him go, fearful of Cardinal's widely known lack of aim. It felt like the electricity they'd shot through him to punish him. His vision went black before his hearing faded.

"Put him in the dumpster!" Spender's voice directed.

Alex felt the sensation of being lifted. He was flung into a warm heap of cans, bottles, and rotting food. The odor wafted all around him as the lid of the dumpster slammed shut. Alex lay in the dark, closed space, twisted limbs trapped beneath him. The rancid odors reeked around him. His thoughts were fading now. Thrown away like the well-used object that he was.

One vain regret. Mulder...Skinner...how he had wanted to see them one more time. 

 

* * *

 

Please take this seriously:

Warnings: No character death, but rape, slavery, and sexual abuse including a sex scene that squicked me and I wrote it. Non consensual Het sex. Serious angst, betrayal and misery.

These are not happy stories at all.

You may want to skip them and read only the fourth in the series that resolves this angst festival.

Title: The Executioner's Face AKA Silver  
Author/pseudonym: Ursula  
Fandom: X-Files  
Pairing: Alex Krycek/Walter Skinner/ Fox Mulder  
Rating: NC-17  
Status: New  
Archive: Anywhere, as a complete story. If you have a constructive critique and wish to use a portion, contact me directly.  
E-mail address for feedback: or   
Series/Sequel: Is this story part of a series: Sequel to "A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall" and Where Have You Gone? One more to ravel up the tired sleeve of care before Christmas.  
Other websites: My page at RatB, thanks to Ned & Leny: http://www.squidge.org/terma/ursula/ursula.htm  
Disclaimers: CC, CC Rider, CC what you have done now. It's his fault. I had to account for how a schmoopy love became the dark violence we saw in all those later episodes. So Carter and FOX TV own them for now until they all follow the Drinking Gourd to freedom. I've already decided to ignore season eight. I'll make it all up to them in the next story.  
Notes: Hey, when someone asks for a dark story, angst happens.  
Warnings: No Character Death, but not a happy story  
Time Frame: After Scully's return and before Anasazi.

Please take this seriously:  
Warnings: No character death, but rape, slavery, and sexual abuse including a sex scene that squicked me and I wrote it. Non consensual Het sex. Serious angst, betrayal and misery.

These are not happy stories at all.

You may want to skip them and read only the fourth in the series that resolves this angst festival.

* * *

The Executioner's Face AKA Silver  
by Ursula

Mulder woke dreaming of a rainy day, black leather, and long beautiful limbs wrapping around his. He groaned and Walter's hand automatically emerged to stroke his stomach. Mulder grunted and rolled away, sitting on the side of Skinner's bed, his head held in faintly shaking hands.

The phone rang and Mulder reached for it before remembering it was Walter's phone and Walter still had something to lose. He handed the handset to his lover and went to take a shower. It surprised him to find Walter sitting on the bed when he emerged all nicely stuffed into his work skin. He grinned and asked, "So, Walter? Did I finally break my favorite toy?"

Walter said, "Krycek...Krycek was found shot in the head."

Mulder felt so many things it was impossible to sort them out, but what he said was, "Shit." He staggered and sat next to Walter on the bed.

Walter said, "He's not dead. Not yet at least. Scully was working late when he was id'ed and slapped a protection order on him."

Mulder shook his head and said, "You know that won't help."

Mulder knew he was looking at Walter with puppy dog eyes. He said, "We have to get him out."

Walter nodded and then stood up. He stood up and walked into the bathroom slowly as if suddenly grown old. Mulder waited impatiently, but this time he wouldn't run off on his own. His own blood seemed to run hot and cold. He squeezed his fists together to keep the pain away. He had closed his heart; sure that Krycek had betrayed them when Walter's friend told him that Alex had never showed in Thailand. The ticket had never been cashed. It was as if Alex had disappeared into the night.

Walter appeared out of the shower. He looked at Mulder and said, "We can't be sure that he didn't just manipulate us. And he's in serious condition. He might not make it."

Mulder nodded. Walter held out his hand. Mulder took it and Walter squeezed it. Mulder said, "I want to believe he didn't betray us. There haven't been any attempts to blackmail us with the information. He hasn't showed up with Cancerman."

Walter said, "I thought he was dead. I actually thought that man had gotten to him and killed him."

A uniformed police officer was stationed outside the door. He sat slouched in a chair disinterested after a cursory glance at their identification. Mulder saw Walter's scornful look and he would bet the man's supervisor would hear about his lackadaisical attitude.

Krycek looked wan, crumpled, someone's ill-used toy left lying in this hospital bed. Mulder decided that his lover looked like a Borg. He had enough machinery on him to seem part of some alien hybrid. One side of Krycek's head was encased in a heavy bandage. 

Scully sat in a chair, leaning on her hand. She must have spent the night there and she looked it, puffy eyed, rumpled, and face washed clean of any trace of make-up.

Mulder went to hug her and said, "Scully, you look so tired. How did you catch him?" He really wanted to ask, "Why did you have to shoot him?"

Scully pushed him away with a grumpily inarticulate sound. She straightened and stretched with a soft moan of protest. Before answering, Scully walked over to the bed and lifted one of Krycek's eyelids, peering it. Then she said, "I didn't catch him. A bum found him in a dumpster two days ago. It looks as if someone who hates him as much as we do caught up with him. He was beaten and then someone shot him. Someone careless enough not to check his or her work. The bullet grazed his skull. Of course head wounds bleed profusely and that may have fooled the shooter."

Walter had picked up the chart. "So there's no brain injury, thank God. Good strong EKG. But he's not regained consciousness?"

Scully stared at Walter thoughtfully. His exclamation had sounded too sincerely grateful. She answered, "Not so much as a wink. And since you two are here. I am dumping this little problem in your laps. I am going to go home, have a nice warm soak, and then I am going to go to bed with a wake up call sometime into next week."

Mulder tried another hug, this one accepted. He watched her go. Walter blocked the door and Mulder went to the bed. He leaned down and kissed Alex on the side of his face that was not swollen from the injury. There was no sign that Alex knew he was here. 

Mulder stroked gingerly at the right side of Alex's head, wincing as he accidentally touched the stubbled line of shaven hair that extended a little past the bandage. "Alex, come on, babe. It's Mulder. You're safe." He raised Alex's hand to his face and kissed it. "Wake up, sleeping beauty."

Alex didn't stir. Silently, they changed places. Walter kissed Alex's forehead and cheek. "Where have you been, Alex? Did he find you?"

A groan emerged from the shattered figure on the bed. Mulder saw one eye slowly open. Alex's hand flailed in the air until Walter caught it. Alex's voice sounded muffled, as rough as if someone had sandpapered the inside of his throat. "Punished me. He punished me. Sold me."

Mulder fought back a sudden heat. He pushed away a mental snapshot of Alex in chains, lifting imploring arms to him. 

Walter's hand swallowed Alex's. He leaned closer to their lover. Walter asked, "Who shot you? Was it the Smoker?"

Alex asked, "Where's Mulder? Please, where's Mulder? Did they hurt him? I was at his place because you moved. You moved away and I couldn't find you"

Walter moaned and said, "Shh, Alex, don't cry now. It's all right. Mulder's right here."

Mulder abandoned the door. 

Walter didn't go back to guard the entrance. Fuck anyone who couldn't handle their twisted little triangle, Mulder thought. It was wrong for the world, but infinitely right for them. Mulder leaned over the bed, pushed in close to Alex. Alex turned his whole head with another pitiful cry of pain. Mulder grunted in alarm. The left eye wasn't working; he could tell by the way Alex craned his right eye to see him.

Alex said, "Mulder. Bet you thought I ran away or went back to them."

Mulder couldn't lie about it. He said, "I'm sorry. But when we found out that you never got to Thailand..."

Alex said, "He was watching. Right at the airport. Took me back. Oh, Mulder, I feel so sick."

Walter managed to get the small basin under Alex's face in time. Mulder frankly fled, seeking a doctor. Nursing was not his forte.

When Mulder arrived back with a doctor, Alex had lapsed back into sleep. The doctor was a dark skinned man with a heavy Latino accent. South American, Mulder guessed. He examined Alex with deft swiftness and then said, "His vital signs have improved."

Mulder said, "I think he was having trouble seeing out of his left eye. He kept moving his whole head to see me out of the right one."

The doctor said, "It's probably temporary. Still..." 

There was nothing objectionable in the way the doctor handled Alex. He lifted an eyelid gently and beamed his small flashlight into the pupil. He said, "His eyes are both reactive. You can see that his eyelid is swollen. I think someone kicked him in the face. He was beaten before he was shot. There are other injuries. Older ones. It looks as if he was tortured. I saw his feet. Someone burned him there. In my country, I treated such things. Which is why I had to come here. I hoped it would be different."

The heavy lidded dark eyes somberly regarded them. "What will they do with him, your government?"

That was a question that Mulder did not want to consider. And it was not a simple one. Which government? The one that had hired Mulder or the one that had hired Alex? 

___

Walter leaned down to kiss Alex good-bye. After his brief wakening, he had remained asleep but not at rest. He was tormented by nightmares... moaning, crying out, and twitching. Sometimes he calmed when he heard their voices, but at other times, he seemed to think they were suffering beside him. He pleaded with someone unseen to spare them. A heart of stone would have melted hearing that, but Walter grimly reflected that the Smoker probably had neither heart nor soul.

Mulder sat by Alex's side, his long legs stretching half way across the room as he sat slumped in the chair. His hand draped across his elegantly shaped forehead, his hair tawny-dark like a lion's mane in disarray from the nervous sweep of his agile fingers. 

Walter explained, "I have to put out a fire or two at the office and I want a look at the police report on Alex's case. Perhaps they missed something. Not that we don't both know who ordered this."

__

Back at the office, Walter had to sign an emergency leave for a worried agent whose wife had just given birth to an exceedingly premature baby. An agent in Maryland had pulled a Mulder and Walter had to explain to the local authorities that the erratically behaving young man really was one of his agents.

Walter grimly cleared his desk of the more urgent matters. It galled him to have to pretend like this. But so far, no one had guessed that their interest in Krycek's case was personal unless it was Scully. She had given him one of her famous cool gazes, the ones that made you feel like a microbe on a slide when he had been fervent in his thanks that Alex wasn't brain dead. 

Accounting thought they had a crisis, but Walter didn't agree. He didn't consider the budget overdrawn until Ways and Means called him up to testify at a closed hearing. Walter left the office manager waiting in the office and "forgot" to call to say he was going to the precinct until he was in the garage. His beleaguered secretary would have to cover for him.

It had been years since he had reason to visit the precinct. Nothing really had changed except the faces. Well, maybe the accused were younger, but then everyone seemed younger to Walter these days.

An eager young cop ushered him to Major Crimes. Krycek's case was assigned to an Inspector Roberts. Wide-eyed and innocent, the uniformed officer asked, "Is the FBI taking over on this? Was the man kidnapped?"

Walter replied, "Maybe." He doubted it. It was best not to draw any more attention to the crime than already existed. A sad commentary that a man could be nearly killed and dropped in a dumpster and not even make the crime column in any of the local papers.

The pictures in the file made him blink back tears. If he had one prayer other than to see Alex well again, it was to get revenge for this on that man; the man that tried to play them like puppets on a string. The police detective assigned to the case was a tall, lean black woman with close-cropped hair. She had a direct, calculating gaze that seemed to penetrate to his subconscious thoughts.

"We assumed it was botched gangland shooting." Inspector Roberts said. She tapped the picture. "His clothing was expensive although he had no wallet. Just the stub to a plane ticket and a few dollars. After I ran his fingerprints, I was surprised to find that the only record was a sealed FBI employment file. And now the assistant director of the FBI is asking about him."

Walter said, "He worked for me. He was a good agent and I liked him."

"And?" Roberts asked, "What happened? He's twenty-five. Too young for retirement. Was he injured? Did he screw up?"

Walter chose his words carefully, assuming that this woman with her plain face, her intense charcoal black eyes, and her blunt confidence would sense a lie.

"He went to work for another agency." Walter stated. "That's as much as I can tell you."

"Undercover." Roberts mused. "So this may have been a bad move in a spy game."

Walter shrugged. He said, "I'll want a copy of that file."

Roberts didn't argue. She walked out side and found a clerk idling at the coffee machine. She set the young man to work copying the file immediately. Walter didn't know if there was anything in there to help them. Still, Mulder should see it. He often found clues that the rest of them had missed.

Walter used the excuse of bringing the file to drop by the hospital, hoping that Alex was awake. He needed to see him. Needed to know he was going to be all right.

Entering that room was like entering a deep freeze. Apparently Scully had decided to bring Mulder lunch. The deli bag sat in the middle of the floor. Alex cowered in the bed, very awake and looking quite like an unfledged bird with the ragged remains of his hair standing straight up; his eyes as wide as saucers. Mulder stood between his beloved friend and his lover; his expression indicating that what he really wanted to do was to jump out the window, never mind that they were seven floors up. 

"He was kissing Krycek." Scully spat out as soon as she saw Walter. "I can't believe it. The rat bastard helped them kidnap me. He screwed us all over. Oh pardon me, Mulder, I guess I should rephrase that. I suppose it's you who does the screwing."

Alex was wincing at each loud word. He looked helplessly at Walter. His hand reached out and he said, "Walter, please." The hand fell back, trembling on the pale blue bed cover. 

"Agent Scully, you will have to leave. As a medical doctor, you should know better. He's just off the critical list." Walter lectured. 

"You're on his side too!" Scully snapped. She moved toward Alex. Mulder was frozen in misery; head drooped on his grace note of a neck. 

Walter moved swiftly. He didn't really think Scully would hurt Alex, not as helpless as he was in this condition, but still his every instinct moved to protect his frail lover. Scully pulled resentfully away from his grip. She said, "Well, he must be very good lay. You too, Walter?"

Mulder moved to follow her; his face twisted with pain. Scully and Mulder were a symbiotic organism. They didn't always get along, but it was hard to imagine one without the other. Scully whipped around and said, "I don't want to talk about it, Mulder, not right now. But don't worry. I won't betray you."

Mulder didn't have to say what he was feeling. His stricken face showed it all. He swallowed his agony and stumbled from the room. He turned just before leaving and said, "Stay with him, Walter." His voice choked with misery, Mulder said, "Alex, it's not your fault."

  
Walter's own chest felt tight and his stomach burned acidic with emotion. He wanted to reason with Scully, to comfort Mulder, but he couldn't leave Alex alone. He straightened his spine, squared his shoulders, and crossed the room to the wounded man's side. Alex had covered his face with his arm. He cried silently, only the trail wetly gleaming down his face betraying him. Walter wanted to hold him as much to reassure himself as to help Alex, but the festooned IV's and that wad of bandages prevented him from giving in to his feelings.

Walter laid his hand over Alex's and said, "Alex, don't worry. They'll work it out. They always do."

Alex said, voice still rasping, "Mulder will be angry with me. I shouldn't have let him kiss me." 

Walter leaned down and sought the dry lips. "Kissing you is a privilege, Alex, a pleasure that I have missed every day since I last saw you."

Alex's mouth softened. His tongue tickled out to taste Walter's. Kissing Alex. Kissing him was bliss, a pleasure so sharp and distinct that it edged toward pain. It made the blood rush in his veins like vodka, like fire. Walter's hand cupped the back of Alex's head, brushed the bandages. He sighed, reminded that his lover was in no shape for this. Walter sat down heavily, exhausted and confused. He remembered though, reaching over to link Alex's hand in his. He felt the gentle squeeze and returned it.

Mulder was gone two hours. The afternoon drizzle must have become a downpour. He was soaked. His hair looked black from the drenching. His wet clothing clung to him limply. He dripped. Walter shook his head and said, "Mulder, get a towel. What the hell did you do?"

Little boy truculence. Mulder mumbled, "I went running."

Walter looked at Mulder's dress shoes and said, "Yes, and your feet are going to raise blisters on your blisters."

Mulder shrugged and went into the bathroom. When he came out, a little drier, he said, "I feel better now. I'm going to call Scully."

Mulder ran a hand though his hair, further maddening the wayward locks. He pulled out the phone, but came over to the bed and sat on it before calling Scully. He leaned down to kiss Alex. "I'm sorry for running out on you that way. It wasn't your fault. I should have told her what happened. But I wasn't sure, Alex. Didn't know if you were coming back."

Alex nodded and his hand rested on Mulder's face. "I wanted to come back, Mulder, but they wouldn't let me. I was with you all the time." He touched his head and said, "In here. I just hid inside myself and waited for a chance. Talk to Scully. If she loves you as much as I do, she'll forgive you."

Mulder sprawled back in the chair, his mouth tightly drawn as if the rift with Scully was a physical pain as well as an emotional one. He picked up the phone, autodialed Scully's number at work. He winced a moment later and snapped the phone shut. "She hung up on me."

Walter said, "Give it some time."

Being AD had its privileges. No one sent them from Alex's room. Around midnight, Scully returned. Alex was awake. Walter was feeding him chips of ice. Mulder was brooding, wrapped up in his own thoughts. They all looked at Scully.

Scully walked over and said, "When did this start? I mean, I knew about you and Mulder, Walter. I'm not an idiot. I know you both too well." She cast her sharp gaze on Alex and she shook her head, her lips pursing in that swift prim rejection that had always warned Walter not to move on his admiration of this lovely and strong woman. "At least, I thought that I did."

Mulder appeared to be trying to dissolve into the chair. Walter carefully put down the glass and said, "Mulder and I ran into Alex in Washington State. That conference we attended in Seattle."

Scully glared at Alex and said, "So you run into this rogue agent, this man who helped them kidnap me, and nearly got you killed, and he was just so pretty that you both had to fuck him?"

Alex frowned at that. Walter had a hand on his lover's leg. It twitched and Walter rubbed it. Scully's eyes caught the action and she grimaced. She said, "Mulder, I never put much past him. Vampires. Beast woman. Porno fantasies. But, you, sir. I expected better of you."

Walter winced. Now how many times had he heard that? His mother, his father, teachers? What did they think he was? Some marble monument come to life? He was just a man, with weaknesses and flaws. All of which, the Smoking Man seemed to find with his leech-like like ways.

Walter said, "Scully, you don't plan whom you love. It just happens. And it wasn't the way that you implied. Alex and I...when Sharon and I separated, it wasn't easy on me. I felt like a failure. There were things in my personal life and my professional one that you wouldn't understand. I would never ever want you to be in a position where you could understand. Alex was tailor-made to make me feel alive again. Maybe that was someone else's plan. But it didn't go the way they expected."

Alex reached for him, grasped his hand. He said, "Because I wasn't supposed to fall in love with you. He thought there was nothing left in me, but he was wrong."

Walter felt a wave of tenderness that rolled through him with physical sensation. He said, "He was very wrong, Alex."

Mulder had finally decided to face his beloved partner. He unfolded from the chair. Mulder said, "Scully, do you remember anything from when you were taken?"

Scully shook her head. Mulder said, "Alex got you out, Scully. They were done with you. They thought that I was broken. That's the only reason they took you. To break me. But you see, they are practical men. Why not use you for the tests as long as they had you? Alex got you out before they killed you."

Scully's hand twitched and she stepped forward, her heels briskly clacking. Walter stood up again. She said, "Don't be ridiculous. I'm not going to hurt him. But you both know he's a liar."

Walter moved aside the blankets. Alex shivered. The thin gown had ridden up, exposing his roundly muscled thighs nearly to his groin. Walter smoothed it down to give Alex some slight modesty. He moved to the end of the bed, holding up Alex's tortured foot. He had thought the doctor was talking about the damage he and Mulder had seen before, but this was infinitely worse. That sick bastard! 

Scully's eyes widened. She said, "My God."

Walter said, "Alex tried to run after you were kidnapped. Those men hunted for him. Found him. Punished him."

Alex jerked his foot from Walter's hands. "That's ugly." He exclaimed. "I hate being scarred. I hate remembering."

Walter soothed the foot and said, "Alex, all of you is beautiful. These are your badges of courage." He covered Alex and smoothed the blanket over him.

Alex smiled a little at Walter's words. He said, "If I had been brave, I would never have left."

Walter said, "He would have killed you. Killed Mulder."

Alex said, "No, he said that Mulder was important. I don't know what he means. He just tells everyone not to kill him. You and Scully, you're expendable. Mulder isn't."

Scully's curiosity was overcoming her antipathy. Scully asked, "Krycek, who is he? Whom do you work for?"

Walter saw Alex struggling with his memories. For a moment, the old Alex shone shrewdly from the shattered eyes. He said, "Christ, Scully, do you think a man like that is going to be listed in a phone book? Anything I tell you is like signing a death warrant for you. I only know enough to get you in trouble, not to help you."

"That's convenient." Scully said. "I haven't fucked you. So forgive me, I'm immune to your charms. You're a liar, a traitor, a coward."

Alex was shaking. Mulder said, "That's enough, Scully."

Scully said, "Why Mulder? Why can't I ask the questions for once?"

Mulder shot her a sullen look and commented, "As if you didn't from the first day."

Scully's voice took on her crisp interrogational tone. She asked, "Krycek, why would you help me? Just tell me that."

Alex looked at her and said, "For Mulder and because..." He tried to shrug and winced instead, lifting a hand to his head.

Scully moved closer. She asked, "What's the other reason?"

Alex turned away, face trying to burrow into the meager excuse for a pillow. Walter didn't think he would answer, but finally he said, "Because you asked me. Because you thought I was Agent Krycek and I had come to help you. That's why." His voice eroded to a whisper. "My head hurts." He said.

Walter said, "All right, that's enough. Mulder, you and Scully go some place to talk. Alex needs to rest."

___

The nurse, a quiet mouse of a woman, appeared almost as soon as Walter had rung the buzzer. He watched her carefully; knowing that her dun brown hair, her faded colored eyes, and slump shouldered posture could be the disguise for some deadly thing. However, the medication looked the same as before and Alex merely murmured something fretful and drowsy before closing his eyes. 

Asleep, Alex was an unhappy child. The small wrinkle above his nose furrowed. His right hand, the one unfettered by an IV tube curled snugly against his cheek. His petulant rosebud of a mouth gaped and his white teeth gleamed from within. Walter settled back in the more comfortable of the two chairs, determined to watch over his lover, despite the grogginess that seemed to press on him, smothering him toward sleep.

Noise woke him. A subtle movement, a rasp of clothing, and Walter was alert. He kept his breathing even as he prepared. The intruder hesitated as the clanking of a metal cart sounded from near the door. Walter calculated the distance and lunged. The flash of light and the percussion arrived almost simultaneously. Rage rose in him, mindless rage, a berserk untrained purposefulness such as had overtaken him in Vietnam, earning him a purple heart, a bronze star, and a gut wound that landed him briefly in a body bag.

The rush of footsteps shook him from his vengeful intentions. Walter squared off at the reinforcements, his gun aimed steadily at mid-chest. The stout cop that had been on duty outside yelped, "Take it easy, man. All I did was go to grab a piss. The nurse's aid said he would keep an eye on things for me. He brought me coffee. He's a good guy..."

Walter shoved his opponent's gun into view. Walter swallowed his rage and said, "I bet he brought you several cups of coffee."

"You going to report this?" The ruddy-faced man asked unhappily.

"In great detail." Walter replied. He edged back toward the bed. 

Alex was awake. The gunshot had penetrated his drugged slumber and his formerly pale face was now snow white. The pupils of his eyes were huge with shock and fear. Walter moved as close as he dared, unable to comfort his lover and raging inside because of that.

______

Scully forgave him. Would she always? And yet, Mulder mulled. It was one of those riddles. The chicken or the egg? If Alex had saved her because he loved Mulder, did that leave anything for her to forgive? Yet if she had not been Mulder's partner, his mainstay, the Watson to his Holmes, she would not have been abducted at all.

Scully leaned on the elevator wall as they returned from a ragged edged conversation over bad McDonald's coffee and sweet rolls that neither had finished. She had taken a moment to put on her armor, makeup smoothing her complexion, glossing her lips, shadowing her eyes. Pretty woman. Pretty mask. Soft feminine guise to cover a steely mind and a resolution less vagrant than his. 

"How do you know you love him?" she asked in a tone that asked for the chemical formula, the greater than or less than of his passion.

Mulder laughed, pretending that she was joking. "Well, Scully, how does anyone know they love someone?"

"Damned if I know." She replied and Mulder saw that she wasn't joking at all.

Mulder shook his head and said, "When Alex isn't around, I feel like something's missing. An Alex sized hollow inside of me."

"It makes no sense to me." Scully said as the elevator lurched to a stop. "You need someone more logical than you...not that most people wouldn't qualify in that respect. Someone such as..."

Mulder winced, sure that she was going to say like herself and paint another layer on their already confusing relationship. Scully's lip twitched in that pretty flicker of a smile. She finished, "Such as Walter."

Mulder said, "Yeah, well, there's that. I love him too, I guess, but when it's the three of us, there's no guessing."

Mulder stiffened as he caught sight of the activity outside of Alex's room. Heart imploding like a black hole.

"Get the fuck out of my way," Mulder snarled, his ID waved at a cop. "FBI!"

Walter poked his head out and said, "That's my agent. My agents, I mean, let them in."

Two hefty nurse's aides were moving Alex onto a gurney. Mulder asked anxiously, "What's going on? Where are they taking him?"

Walter replied, "To a different room. There was an assassination attempt."

___

In the new room, Scully shouldered the doctor aside. She said, "I'm taking over. Dana Scully, MD. She flipped open her ID and showed the doctor her board certification.

The doctor scowled, "A pathologist? You're a little premature."

Scully replied, "Not much premature if I leave his care with the staff here. One attempt is quite enough."

Scully was surprisingly gentle, considering the brisk fashion that she used to treat Mulder's frequent injuries. She reconnected the IV's and stood, holding Alex's wrist, checking his pulse.

Alex stared at her bemusedly. "Scully?"

Scully answered, "Since it appears the two men I care about are in love with you, I'll put my own feelings aside. Alex, tomorrow you are going to take a turn for the worse. In fact, you are going to die."

Alex laughed softly and said, "Deja vu. That's how I got you out."

"Scully." Mulder said in that seductive caress of a tone Walter heard him use only for her.

Scully snapped, "Don't make any mistake about this. I'm only doing this because I love you, Mulder. That doesn't mean that I like any of you." Scully shot a resentful gaze at the three of them. Walter didn't blame her. He knew she felt betrayed.

Scully said, "You can take him to my Aunt May's house. She died a year ago and left the house to Melissa and I." 

Scully looked back at Alex and complained, "I can't believe I'm doing this."

Alex was sensible enough not to try to thank her. He was limp from pain and stress. A tremor shook his hands as they curled outside the blanket. Walter patted him and said, "It's going to be okay. We won't let them take you."

____

Alex dug his fingers into the bedding. Was it still warm from Walter's body? He had made a fool out of himself again when Scully told his lovers to leave. He had clung to Walter like a drowning man to the hope of salvation. Had hid his face in the solid, warm reality of Walter's chest, feeling Mulder's hands rubbing his back. 'Don't take this from me' he prayed, fearful of the demons that still howled at his heels. 'Let me stay right here in this secure harbor'.

Walter's hands soothed him and lay him down, his stronger will overwhelming the nebulous fabric of Alex's sense of self. "You'll be all right." He promised, but he had said that before. Out of sight, was out of mind, was gone. They left him with Scully, who walked toward him with a bright shining needle. Alex huddled deeper, his body remembering that fetal curve, that knot of fleshly defiance to keep the Smoker away. 

And remembered hands and laughter as they wrenched his limbs open as if he were no more than an infant. He caught Scully's hand as she leaned close and said, "They turned me inside out."

Scully's face would have been funny if Alex hadn't mislaid his humor somewhere along the way. "Krycek, settle down. This will only make you sleep."

Sleep? Alex knew about that. Hours and hours beneath the bright lights, white...white...white room. "He wouldn't let me sleep. Sleep burns. Keep your eyes open, Alex. Look at me."

Alex fearfully gazed around the room. Where was he? The smoke made Spender gray. Years and years of molecule by molecule replacement, an osmosis of smoke to make the man what he was; no longer flesh and blood, an empty creature of sulfurous stench. Nosferatu, devourer of souls. Alex thought he saw something move and said, "No, he's here. I can't go to sleep until he lets me. Scully, do you want him to punish you too?"

Scully's eyes were different. She had water in her eyes. Her hand trembled as she patted him. "No-one's here, Krycek. He's not in the room." But Alex saw her blue eyes glance here and there, peer into the shadows just as he did.

The pretty, pretty mask crumpled and she said, "I can't do this. What the hell am I remembering?"

Alex saw her struggling. He whispered, "I'm sorry, Scully. I didn't mean to bring it back. I wish I could forget."

Scully turned her face away. She wiped her eyes with a sharp stab of a movement and then briskly injected the medicine into Alex.

Alex fought it. He resisted the inert pull of the medicine, the sleep that held no safety for him. His eyes dragged on the spars of slumber. He yielded for a moment then woke with a start.

"Jesus, Krycek, just go to sleep." Scully snapped. "What's wrong with you?"

Alex replied, "I'm scared, Scully, so scared."

Scully said, "No one's going to hurt you. You want to see Walter, don't you?"

Alex nodded although it made him feel as if his neck was wobbling, his head about to roll from its unsteady perch. "Mulder too," he whispered. "Mulder."

Scully glowered her disapprobation. Her pale complexion seemed marble-like in the bilious hospital lights and made her seem one of the Fates.

"Atropos cuts the thread." Alex murmured.

Scully exhaled in a descending scale. "Krycek, why me? What did I do to deserve this? First Mulder and now you. Just go to sleep."

Alex reached out to take her hand, to touch someone on the way down. She started to pull away and then relented. Her hand felt small in his, but her grip was firm. Alex blinked a last time and let the darkness take him.

___

Scully groused to herself, "If the medical ethics board gets a hold of this, they'll rescind my license."

Scully shook her head, but after one last wince; she signed the death certificate. The machinery of the hospital slid smoothly into place. Supposedly, Scully would do the autopsy. Mulder's friends, Byers, Frohike and Langly had bribed someone to allow them to use a funeral home station wagon. It belonged to a friend of theirs. Scully shuddered as she contemplated reasons why the strange triad would cultivate the acquaintance of someone who worked in a mortuary. She helped them slide Krycek's body into a body bag and then onto a gurney. 

Frohike asked, "Are you sure he isn't dead? He sure feels dead."

Scully said, "Of course he isn't dead. I know what I'm doing." She checked the pulse, very faint, but that was expected given the combination of drugs that she had used. She said, "Hurry up now."

Frohike said, "Well, this is even weirder than the usual stuff that Mulder is involved in."

Scully rolled her eyes and raised her eyebrows. Sometimes she thought that her brows would simply rise up and be stuck in their disbelieving and exasperated arch. And it would all be Mulder's fault too.

______

Mulder checked his watch. By this time, the Lone Gunmen should be here. Forty-five minutes ago, Scully should have escorted a mannequin stuffed body bag into her autopsy bay. Of course, Frohike, dramatist as he was, had offered to provide a real body to substitute for Alex. Mulder had politely declined. Mulder looked around. The underground parking lot at this hospital was quiet at this hour. Most of the possible visitors were at work, the new patients had been admitted hours ago, and the lucky ones being discharged had gone home. 

The Gunmen liked complicated plots. They had driven the ambulance into a tunnel; one of the ones that seemed built as fish traps for cars rather than to actually aid them in getting from one place to another. Byers waited in line with all the other jammed vehicles. Easy enough for Frohike and Alex to climb into his car, leaving Langly to drive the mortuary vehicle back. When they finally moved out of the tunnel, Frohike had called saying, "Package was transferred."

Walter stepped out and put an arm briefly around Mulder. "He'll be here soon."

Mulder nodded and leaned back for a moment; that was Walter strong, solid, a shelter in moments like this. Mulder closed his eyes. Warm. Safe. Sane. No wonder his heart always craved Alex even when he lay happily satiated in Walter's bed. Like a humming bird, Mulder only wanted a moment of stability. He was a creature of fire and air. 

Walter tightened his grip for a moment. Mulder wriggled free. He asked, "What are we going to do with him? I mean, when he is well enough to travel. Will your friend in Thailand still hire him?"

Walter said, "Probably, but that's not the best plan. We should assume that Alex told the Smoker about Tony."

Mulder said, "I suppose I could see if the guys can come up with something."

Mulder saw Byers in the front seat of a Volvo. 'Hmm, wonder where they borrowed that one from? Some yuppie friend of John's?' As they came closer, Frohike's head popped up, but Alex wasn't visible.

Mulder and Walter moved as one. Anxiously, Mulder pulled the door open. Alex lay huddled in the farthest corner from the Gunmen. Walter went around to help their lover out. 

Mulder said, "Thanks, guys."

Frohike asked, "You sure you don't need help interrogating him? There are some things I just read about that I'm dying to try."

Mulder shook his head, watching Walter settle Alex into the car. Alex sleepily moved to lay his head on Walter's shoulder. "My head hurts." Alex complained, "And I feel sick."

Walter said, "I know Alex. You'll feel better soon. I promise."

Frohike's eyes widened and he said, "Uh, do I sense something wrong with this scene?"

Mulder just met the man's eyes. Frohike stammered, "Hey, well, that's cool with me. I mean he's pretty and all. Does this mean that I can have Scully?"

 Mulder laughed and said, "Don't you think that you should take that up with Scully?"

Frohike said, "Hey, just wanted to make sure it was cool with you."

Mulder nodded, eager to get Alex settled in a bed. He said, "Thanks, Frohike, I appreciate it." He said, "The field is clear for you, sir. I have other interests."

Frohike glanced at Alex again and said, "Okay, you need anything else...if he needs a forged identity or anything, we're on call."

Mulder smiled and said, "As a matter of fact, he will need one. But be careful. The men from whom Alex is running are very clever and dangerous."

Mulder exchanged places with Walter, smiling as Alex curled around him, resting his face cheek to cheek so sweetly. "Where are we going?" Alex asked.

"A little cabin in the country." Mulder replied. "Some place safe."

"Safe?" Alex questioned, "Is any place safe?" He burrowed deeper into Mulder's side though and went to sleep.

____

____

A bump in the road woke Alex. He peered out seeing trees, an irrigation ditch, a worried band of quail scattering into the overgrown weeds. Mulder stretched as Alex sat up. His arm had probably gone to sleep from Alex's weight leaned on it.

Mulder said, "There's the place."

You wouldn't exactly call it a cabin, Alex thought. It was just a house, a small, simple place that sat on a secluded road, apple orchards framing it on three sides. The wide porch had a swing and empty planting boxes, a black mailbox with a curlicue flourish underneath for magazines, and the remains of a hanging planter. A strawberry pot still held a withered brown ghost of its former occupant. 

Inside, the walls were papered in flowered designs. The house had a patina of love, of grubby, chubby toddler hands, scrubbed spots that remembered the misled efforts of budding young artists. Alex liked it instantly. He wished he didn't feel so tired and ill so he could just sit for a while in the sunny living room. "It's nice." He said. "It feels happy. Like someone was happy here."

Walter said, "It belonged to Scully's aunt. She was a foster parent, Scully said. Took care of a lot of children here. Come on, love. Up the stairs. Time for you to go back to bed."

Alex argued, "I'm tired of bed...I don't think I can sleep." A yawn betrayed him and Walter smiled at him.

Walter said, "I'm going to go out for groceries. Chicken soup for lunch."

  
Alex settled in the bed, but caught at Mulder's hand. "I'll sleep if you lie down with me."

Walter said, "But sleep is the word, Alex. Right, Mulder?"

Mulder grumbled, "As if I was that greedy."

Alex waited until Mulder slid under the covers. Even though his eyelids were leaden, Alex fought sleep. He traced Mulder's face, mapping his beloved features with tender tentative touch. "Kiss me and I'll go to sleep." He bargained.

Mulder smiled, a quick crooked show of teeth. A wry smile. A Mulder smile. Alex traced his lover's mouth. In hindsight, every gesture, every expression of his lover's had been precious. When he had curled, wracked with pain in whatever dark, cold hole that his puppet master chose, Alex had taken those memories out, examining them, cherishing them, reliving them in his mind. They had kept him alive, saved his sanity as much as possible. They saved him from utter loss of his self.

Mulder kissed his hands, took his fingers in his mouth for a moment to suck on them. Alex said, "I want you."

Mulder chuckled and said, "Walter would have both our hides and, what ever was left, Scully would make a change purse out of. Go to sleep. You promised."

Alex said, "You won't leave me?"

Mulder wrapped his arms around Alex and replied, "Got you right here."

_____

Mulder woke. He heard something. Never a heavy sleeper, this latest trial had made his slumber a mere taste of sleep. He felt at his side. Alex was out of bed. He heard a harsh sob. Walking in the bathroom, he heard a thump. Alex stood in front of a full-length mirror that was mounted on the door of the linen closet. His hand drew back to strike the surface again. Mulder caught it and caught Alex's waist with his other arm. "What's wrong, lover?"

Alex gestured to the desecration of his hair, the mound of bandage covering the side of his head. Alex was dressed in the way Mulder liked best, nude, natural beauty his only cloak. Anything more was gilding the lily.

 Mulder found the place he liked to stroke where a few sleek hairs led his fingers lower. Where the firm muscles momentarily softened to a faint curve that marked the join of belly and groin. The skin was so soft and the v of hair led him down to the otter pelt of pubic hair. Mulder petted Alex there, enjoying the sudden arch backwards, the sharp intake of breath.

Still, grimacing at his reflection, Alex said, "They massacred my hair. And I look like a stand-in for the mummy."

Mulder snuggled his nose into Alex's neck. He moved slightly to suckle the lobe of Alex's ear. He nipped the ear then tongued the piercing, remembering his surprise the day he noticed that little clue that stuffy Agent Krycek hid someone else much less conventional. "Alex, don't be silly. It'll grow back. You look rakish. A prince of the desert with a turban. Come on. Let me take you back to bed."

Alex leaned against him. He said, "No, I want a bath. You can help me." 

Mulder felt Alex's cock stir beneath his hand. He surrounded it, stroking its quivering heat. "Okay, even Scully can't object to a little cleanliness. As long as we keep the bandages dry."

Whatever had happened to Alex since they parted, his body was well tended. He had been thin when they saw each other last, but now his body had lost the last vestige of his juvenile gawkiness. He was solid with muscle, toned with that even sculptured development that seldom happens except by frequent visits to a gym. Mulder explored the silken structure of Alex's body with a thrill of possession. The droplets of water and the slick of soap burnished the sheen of his flesh.

Mulder groaned and said, "You look so fucking hot. What the hell have you been doing? Competing at muscle beach?"

Alex blushed and said, "You don't like it? Mistress liked me this way. Beautiful and fit just like the show dogs in her kennel. I think she wished she could have had me compete for her too. Put a blue ribbon in her trophy case."

Mulder frowned. What the hell was he talking about? Mulder said, "What do you mean, Mistress? You were with a woman? A lover?"

Alex looked at him oddly and said, "Not a lover, Mulder. I only have two lovers. She was someone that owned me. First Master owned me, but the rebels killed him. Then Mistress bought me and brought me back here. But she died and I ran away. I wanted to come home to you and Walter."

Alex sounded like a sleepy child. Mulder finished washing him and put him to bed. He heard a car pull up and went to glance out the window. It was Walter. He stopped the Taurus and reached in to get bags. Mulder said, "It's just Walter. You rest a bit until lunch is ready."

Mulder dashed down the steps and made for the back seat. "Did you get ice cream? Alex likes ice cream. I hoped you were careful and made sure you weren't followed."

Skinner gave him an owlish look and said, "Unlike you, Mr. Toad, when I engage in acts of subterfuge they stay covert operations. No, I was not followed and I am sure."

Now after all, having had a little sleep, Mulder was hungry. He eagerly unpacked the contents of the brown paper sacks until he was left puzzled. There were no cans. Walter had said that he would make soup for lunch. There was raw chicken, boned and skinless, celery, carrots, and the biggest green onion he had ever seen. Mulder brandished this item and asked, "Didn't I see this in 'Sleepers'? Growing next to the giant bananas? This is the most God-awful big green onion that I ever saw. What's it for? The relish tray of the Gods?"

"It's a leek, Mulder. And stop right there. I can see the joke before it's out of the gate. Wash up. You can chop the vegetables while I season the chicken."

From scratch...Walter was making soup from the raw parts. "Campbell's would be quicker." Mulder mumbled as he set about his chore.

"Right." Walter said, "And hardly worth the moment it takes to warm it. Chop, Mulder, finely chop the leek and thin slice the carrot. I can have the soup on the table in half an hour with your help."

Alex called out as the soup bubbled on the stove. "I want to get up." He said. "Walter, can I come downstairs? That soup smells so good."

___

Alex's sigh of contentment sounded like a cat's purr. He snuggled in the royal blue quilt. Mulder had washed the few dishes, pushed to this extreme by his boss and lover who was suddenly a tyrant. Strange to realize it, but Mulder had seldom seen Walter cook. Of course, sometimes he arrived to a nicely laid out meal, but mostly he was just buzzed in late to tumble around on the big comfortable bed in Skinner's apartment, leaving before morning brought the eyes of observant neighbors.

It was a new side of his lover and Mulder was not quite sure if he liked it. Alex's diminutive nose sniffed the air like a little pink rat nose as the odors of cooking enticed him. "It smells so good." Alex said. "It reminds me of my mother. She used to cook vats of chicken soup when I was sick. With lovely dumplings bobbing on top. Walter, are you making dumplings?"

Walter bowed and said, "As you wish." He took down another bowl and started a frenzy of flour flying through the kitchen.

Alex said, "I must be dreaming. Hey, Mulder, look. There are ripe apples on that tree!"

  
Mulder couldn't tell, but he knew Alex had wonderful eyesight. He said, "Want one? I'll get you one."

"Bring me a golden one." Alex pleaded.

Golden apples, well, Mulder thought. If this were Greek mythology, this might not be so easy. 

The ladder rungs had almost all broken. Mulder boosted up the remaining step, caught a roughly barked branch and studied the fruit until he spotted three perfect globes. He almost fell reaching for the last one, but caught himself in time. The crisp air smelled of sweet ripe fruit. Everything was somnolent. The buzz of bees the only industrious note in the quiet. Mulder loved autumn days like this. When the sun would warm you until you felt as if your bones were melting after the cold tang of the morning passed. It was a time for resting and regrouping before the long hard winter ahead.

Mulder washed his loot and threw one in a lazy spin to Walter who caught it in his catcher's mitt of a hand. Alex and he would share an apple, he decided. This one, the biggest, the roundest, looking as succulent a fruit as any from Olympus. He presented it grandly with a bow and said, "For the fairest."

Alex said, "Mulder, you know, I just love you."

Wiggling in to sit behind his lover, Mulder replied, "I know" and fed him slivers of apple, the perfectly ripe sweetness like catching and savoring a perfect moment of time.

____

Scully arrived after lunch the next day. She said, her mouth a grim line, "I was followed."

Walter leapt up, intending to gather his lovers and run. Scully shook her head and said, "I lost them at the mall. You own me three bags of clothes and one of cosmetics. I had to do something to pass the time. The men had fallen asleep. Apparently not the kind that enjoys watching a woman shop. I doubled back so many times I met myself both coming and going. Now, Alex, let me have a look at that head."

Walter noticed Mulder edge away. had a strong stomach. He looked closely at the wound. A degree of variance and he would have had that bullet in his skull. As it was, the stitches were neat and he was healing well. Alex's strange luck had held. It was if his mother, like that of Achilles, had made a perverse bargain to try to save her child. Alex seemed able to live through anything, but not without scars. Hardly unscathed in body or soul. Alex jerked away as Scully painted the wound with antiseptic. 

"Hold still." She said. "You're as bad as Mulder, Alex."

Walter grinned. She was slipping, using Alex's first name. Walter patted Alex's arm and asked, "Do you have to put all those bandages on again?"

"No, I'm just going to use a small one to protect the wound." Scully replied, briskly applying one as she spoke.

Alex said, "I feel pretty good now. I was wondering if it was okay if I did a little more. Walter said I shouldn't be too active until you said that I was better."

Scully asked, "Are you better? Any dizziness? Headaches?"

Alex said, "No dizziness since before I left the hospital. And just a little headache every once in a while. I'm good."

Scully said, "Then you should be okay." Her blue eyes traveled from Alex to Mulder peering around the kitchen to see if they were done and back to Walter. She slowly said, "No marathons...if you all understand what I mean."

Walter thought that he had clocked in his last blush at precisely O-nine-hundred-hours at a place called Lil's in Saigon after he found out what his unit had bought him for his nineteenth birthday. But Scully's blue-eyed scrutiny was the resurrection and the life to his modesty. He was scarlet, crimson, red as a ruby, hot as a welding torch. Mulder laughed and said, "You know, we could use your ears for landing lights, Walter. Easy, big guy. Scully's mostly harmless. She's just a straight shooter."

Scully smiled and said, "Now, I'm going to wash up. I smell something cooked here. Is there any left?"

Walter willingly, very willingly got up to warm the lasagna. Scully and Mulder might trade barbs about their sex life, but the few years of age difference may as well have been fifty years. Walter's generation did not discuss sex with the opposite gender...at least not out of bed.

Scully spent the afternoon. It was surprisingly idyllic. Just a family unit of four adults. Four survivors. Walter watched his lovers. Mulder pleased that Scully had accepted his beloved. Alex so eager to be accepted by Scully. 

As for Walter, he knew he loved each of the others. Mulder like something wild he had captured and partially tamed. Something, which craved his touch while looking though hooded eyes at the sky that called him. 

Alex, however, was like a feral dog that had dim memories of being loved before he was cast out, kicked, and starved. Always looking for safe harbor even as he snapped and growled in fear.

And Scully, Scully was like a beloved sister. Exasperated yet loving. Finding Walter's attempts to keep them safe by his silences and compromises to be misguided. And Mulder, whom she loved, but had the good sense not to love too much.

Walter took Scully out to walk in the apple orchards. She looked lovely in this setting with the sun in her hair and the red-gold highlights echoed from the trees. Walter reached up, piling the basket Scully held high with Apples, Jonagolds, Mackintoshes, Winesaps, and older varieties that he had never known existed. 

"This is a Golden Russet for cider. My aunt used to press her own and take it to the farmer's market." Scully explained, holding up a humble little apple. These aren't that good to eat, but great for pie." She laughed and said, "Not that you and Mulder are apple pie types. You surprised me though. Mulder...the more wrong for him the better. That's what I think. I thought you were more cautious, Walter."

Walter replied, "You don't really know me, Scully. I wasn't born behind that desk. At one time I was considered as unconventional as Mulder." Walter laughed and said, "Why else would I put up with him?"

The basket piled high; Scully was ready to go. She said, "I'll see you later. Oh, the guys said they're onto something for Krycek. I'll tell you tomorrow."

Mulder and Alex had disappeared by the time that Walter had seen Scully off. So much for being a gentleman. He yelled, "Alex, Mulder?"

"Up here," panted Mulder. A laugh, breathless rippling, richly dark with passion. "Way up here."

Walter took the steps two at a time, shedding his sweater halfway up, shoes at the top of the stair, and lastly jeans outside the door. He arrived wearing just his shorts to find both of his lovers sitting demurely in bed. Alex said nothing, but his eyes danced, the last of the dull dead look vanished. Mulder grinned and pulled the blankets down to chest level, Alex's firm stomach, his own slightly softer and dusted with oddly golden hairs. Lower still, Alex's uncut cock-head emerging rampant and eager from its shield of flesh. Mulder's surprisingly large and deep purple already.

Mulder said, "Did you really think we would start without you? C'mere. Get in here." Mulder's voice was a throaty invocation that tugged Walter like gravity to the bed. 

Walter tugged down his shorts. He should have worn boxers. He winced as the briefs snagged on his eager cock. "Damn." He exclaimed. "Double damn." He added as Alex leaned forward, his pinkly prehensile tongue playing over his mouth.

Pounced. The two of them were like a pair of cats, rough tongued, claws just playfully poking. Walter was the willing prey. Lost in the verdant depths of Alex's eyes. The face like a mask, a beauty ageless and timeless. Gently Walter slid his hand around Alex's neck and guided him down to delight in his kiss, to share one breath, one soul. He could feel Mulder's mouth moving on him and devouring him. Shuddering, Walter anchored himself to Alex. Nothing else was ever like this, nothing that took him raw and aching, his shell, and his reserve surrendered joyously.

It was just flesh. It was just sex. So easy to try to diminish this. Three male bodies sucking, nibbling, evoking shivers and moans. No top, no bottom, complete. When they made love they were whole. And to the last sigh, so beautiful. So beautiful. Hardly mattered who said it, who did what to which lover. Until finally Alex cried, his tears spilling as he murmured their names.

"I don't want to leave this time. Let me stay. If they kill me, it doesn't matter. Not really. I'd die apart from you. I'd be empty. Let me stay." Alex pled.

"We'll see." Walter said, an empty promise. Where was there a safe place? And there was Mulder's crusade. Much as Walter would have liked to flee. To Tony's, to Antarctica or Tierra del Fuego, to any remote place. Yet he protected Mulder. Not always or even nearly as often as he wished, but he did stand as a shield. His compromises, bitter bile rising, his visits from that gray man, that banal man in an ill-fitting suit. Evil that hardly bothered to be seductive or glamorous or even clever. Just a man standing, his eyes amused as if Skinner was a bug struggling on a pin. Not very heroic, Walter thought, but they also served who stood in the way of juggernaut and allowed the hero to escape.

Mulder's eyes, not walled for once by his humor, his quick conversion of grief to anger, met Walter's. They moved as one, shielding Alex from the cold night air. If they could shield him forever...if they could but do that.

____

____

'Where the hell was Scully?' Mulder thought. He wanted to go back to bed with his lovers. Soon, too soon, they would need to make plans. They would need to part and to complete what they had started months ago. Alex was the most vulnerable. Mulder knew that the Smoker saw him as a king piece although why remained a riddle. Walter was a useful knight, a chessman useful for an odd maneuver or two. Alex, however, was a pawn, as far as the Smoker was concerned, he had outlived his usefulness and now just cluttered the board and got in the way. 

Only pride made the man go after Alex the last time, but the second weakness the man had was hubris. And Alex had hurt his pride, defied him and fooled him, grabbed his prey from his claws before he was done playing the life out of her. Mulder didn't know the Smoker, but he understood him well. He was not a man who would accept defeat nor let defiance go unpunished. He might have been done with Alex, but he would not allow the pretty toy to be taken by another.

Mulder winced. He sometimes saw himself in that evil man. Saw the ruthlessness in face of a mission. It frightened him. He never wanted to wake up someday and find himself a spider caught in his own web.

Mulder found Walter reading to Alex, enjoying the golden light that lazed through the window as they sprawled together on the couch. Walter's voice perfect for reading poetry as easily adapted to commanding men, read:

My long two-pointed ladder's sticking through a tree  
Toward heaven still,  
And there's a barrel that I didn't fill  
Beside it, and there may be two or three  
Apples I didn't pick upon some bough.  
But I am done with apple-picking now.  
Essence of winter sleep is on the night,  
The scent of apples: I am drowsing off.  
I cannot rub the strangeness from my sight  
I got from looking through a pane of glass  
I skimmed this morning from the drinking trough  
And held against the world of hoary grass.  
It melted, and I let it fall and break.  
But I was well  
Upon my way to sleep before it fell,  
And I could tell  
What form my dreaming was about to take.

Alex yawned and smiled, green eyes gilded in the flattering light. He was happy. Sleekly content in their lover's arm. Mulder went to push them both over a bit and make room for his own lanky body. He leaned back on Walter, bent Alex's head towards him for a kiss. "Scully's late." He announced. "And her phone is off. I left a message on her voice mail."

Alex said, "You should go and have a look. Both of you. I'll be safe here for a little while. I'll take a nap. Store up some energy for later. Go on."

It was a good idea, although Mulder was uneasy about leaving Alex unattended even for a little while. Still, it seemed reasonable. This was a remote patch of road. It was bumpy and the surface was slick with fallen leaves and with the residue of the morning frost. Scully might have found trouble. 

They didn't find her and drove into the city. Her car was parked in her usual spot. Mulder frowned and said, "I suppose she could have forgotten." Right, Scully always knew the time of day, never absent-mindedly forgot appointments. He knocked on the door and heard a familiar voice say, "Come in, gentlemen."

  
No fool, the Smoker had accessorized himself with wall-to-wall thugs. They ranged like a jackal pack, assessing weakness, waiting to attack at any show of weakness. Their eyes were all as expressionless and empty in a deadly threatening way as the muzzles of their steely guns.

"Well, well, aren't you surprised? Isn't this where you ask, 'Where is she? What have you done with Scully?"

Mulder glanced at Walter, saw the head mulishly bent, the fists caught in knots, white knuckled, painful looking lumps of obdurate defiance. The Smoker's washed out blue eyes followed Mulder's gaze. "Ah, yes, isn't he splendid? I do enjoy my little bouts with him, every time I think I've broken him, he surprises me. But Walter knows his limits. Do you know yours, Agent Mulder? You know, I realized belatedly that Alex had done me a favor, saving your sweet Agent Scully. She's your weakness as you are hers. So charming. And of course, Assistant Director Skinner will do almost anything to save you both. It's all so amusing."

Walter spat his words, "We don't have all day."

The Smoker leisurely lit another cigarette, his thin lips creasing in cruel little smile. He loved to play games, Mulder thought. He loved to pull strings.

"Now Alex is a trifle, an irritating trifle. I don't care for loose ends and I will not be defied." The Smoker said, his jaundiced fingers trembling in suppressed rage. "He's my property. Had you asked for his use nicely, Mulder, we might have made arrangements. It's not as if he has any real value. It's the principal of the matter."

Walter interjected, "If it's a bargain you want..."

The Smoker smirked and said, "What can you offer me? I already have a lien on your soul. As for Mulder, I am afraid it's too late. If I let dear Alex escape at this point, it would be a poor decision. It would undermine the corporate structure. However, I will promise you that I will spare his life. Who knows? I may need him again. I might send him back to you at some point. Once he's chastened." The man's laugh was a wet wicked thing, like the liquidly decaying slide of a ghastly hand.

"Now, choose, Scully's life or Alex's freedom? What will it be?" the Smoker said.

Mulder yelled, "Fuck you. Fuck you, someday you'll pay for this."

The Smoking Man puffed on his cigarette. He smiled around it and finished a long obscene drag on it before saying, "Scully is paying right now. There are things worse than death, you know. And that's not just a Victorian bit of melodrama. Did Alex tell you what I did with him? How I sold him? How he was passed from hand to hand like a tawdry little toy? What would that do to her? How would Scully deal with that? The violation of her body? The slow destruction of her inner self? Alex is adaptable. Amazingly adaptable. He bends. He accommodates and keeps some hidden reserve. Scully is strong yet she doesn't bend easily, does she, Mulder? No, I don't think she would live if I put her through what Alex endured. What do you think, Mulder?"

"Damn!" Mulder said, his voice shaken. The Smoking man was right. Scully couldn't endure degradation. Could not cope with the loss of her self-respect. Mulder said, "All right. But I'll need to see her."

The Smoker replied, "In all good time. When we exchange them, you'll see her. Meet me at the East end of the parking lot on Constitution Street by the War Memorial at midnight. If I'm late, you can always entertain yourselves by contemplating the merits of being a dead hero. So much less trying than the complexities of your lives."

____

Mulder asked as they climbed into the car, "Are we doing the right thing, Walter?"

Walter looked at him and said, "Is there any choice? It's not right, Mulder. Sometimes that's not the choice. Sometimes it's the choice of one wrong against the other. Scully is in his hands because of us, Mulder. Because we love Alex. Because we can't resist him."

Mulder said to himself, "He won't kill, Alex. That would be losing if he does it now. I understand that much about him. We give him Alex, get Scully back, and then go after him. We'll find Alex again. And I know he'll forgive us."

Walter said, "Good that you know that. I don't even know that I'll be able to live with myself. Either way."

Mulder brightened and said, "Go to the Lone Gunmen. We'll plant a bug in his guts. We'll get Scully back and then free Alex too. It'll work. It'll have to work."

_____

Mulder moaned as they approached the cabin. He shook his head and said, "God, Walter, how can we do this?"

Walter looked at him silently and said, "We could try some other way."

Mulder said, "He'd kill her or worse."

Walter replied, "I know. But it doesn't make this right."

Mulder said, "My instincts tell me that he isn't lying. The kind of man he is...can't tolerate defiance, can't let anything he owns get away. I really believe he won't kill Alex now that he's cooled down. When he has Alex back, that will show the others that you can't get away. Killing him would only show that he couldn't control Krycek any other way."

Walter sighed and steered into the driveway. He said, "I'm not sure if Krycek wouldn't choose another bullet, this time right through his brain as the lesser evil."

Mulder fingered the transmitter. It was small, like a pill. Once Alex swallowed it, they would have twenty-four hours to follow it to him. It seemed so small to gamble a man's life on. Yet otherwise, the Smoking Man would win.

Alex was watching through the window. He met them at the door a questioning look in his eyes. He asked, "Is something wrong? Mulder, did you find Scully?"

Mulder looked at Walter. They hadn't decided when and what to tell Krycek. Walter made the decision. He took out handcuffs and said, "Give me your hands, Alex."

Alex looked to Mulder and then back. "Walter, Mulder, I thought..."His voice trembled and he said, "You said that you would keep me safe. You promised."

Mulder replied, "They took Scully, Alex. If we turn you over, The Smoker will give her back."

Alex knelt and laid his head against Mulder's legs. "Please, if you have to do it. It's okay. I understand, but not alive. You said that you loved me. Please just let me die first."

Mulder knelt and embraced Alex, "Shh, please don't cry anymore, Alex. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

Alex said, "So you'll do it?"

Mulder closed his eyes and rested his cheek on Alex's hair. He said, "I can't. He said, "Alive" if I want Scully returned alive."

Alex pushed Mulder away. He looked at Walter helplessly. "Walter?"

Walter wanted to run from the cabin. If he ever had a chance at the Smoker, the man would pay. Gathering his courage, Walter said, "I can't help you until we get Scully back, but after that, we'll come after you, I promise. Mulder, show him the transmitter."

Mulder held it up. "See, Alex, you swallow this and then we'll use it to track you. He won't be able to hide you."

A very small voice said, "But he can...he does it all the time. I thought you loved me. You said that you loved me."

Walter took a deep breath and looked at Mulder and said, "He's right. We can't do this. We can't just turn him over against his will."

A cry wailed ripped out of Mulder. "Scully." Mulder turned and ran.

Walter gathered Alex up and helped him to the couch. Alex turned away from him, his shoulders moving. Weeping silently. This was hell, utter hell...

The grandfather clock loudly thumped away. The hesitation reminded Walter of Vietnam, of his ear pressed to the chest of a friend as they waited for the medics to save him. Of the shattered sound and then the silence as the heart took one last beat and ceased.

Mulder went outside, paced, walked up to Krycek, huddled on the couch with his face turned to the wall, said nothing and went out again. Walter looked at the clock. They were supposed to meet with the Smoker in an hour. Alex uncurled and slowly rose from the bed. He took a sighing breath and approached Walter. "Okay." He said simply. 

Walter nodded and asked, "Are you sure?"

Alex replied, "No. But it's over no matter what I choose. You don't love me enough to sacrifice Scully, but at least, you weren't willing to just throw me away as the Smoker did. I'll go. Take me now before I run away. Because I'm so frightened, Walter. He wants to break me. He'll take away that last part of me and I'll be lost, truly lost."

Walter enfolded him. He rocked him as they stood. Mulder reentered. Walter's voice broke as he said "Alex is going to trade himself for Scully."

Mulder's face crumpled. He hurtled away, his fist crashing into the wall. He staggered and almost fell in his grief and rage. Walter said, "Mulder, this isn't your sacrifice or mine. This is Alex's time."

Mulder lifted suddenly furious eyes at Skinner. He snarled, "What do you mean?"

Walter quietly responded, "I mean that this may be the last hour we spend together for a while. If Alex can stand to look at us, we should spend it with him, not raging at the Smoker."

Alex asked, "Do we have to go now?"

Walter nodded. Alex said, "You better drive, Walter. Mulder might get us all killed." And Alex tried to smile, but it was just a flicker, a thin stretch of his lips. He said, "Mulder, come on. Hold onto me. Hold on tight."

They crammed into the front seat. Alex's breaths came in deep shudders. Mulder and he clung together like frightened children, casting Walter as the adult. For once, he couldn't handle it. He had to stop the car before they reached the city. On his knees, retching, Walter spewed his guts into a ditch.

No one said anything after he rinsed his mouth and restarted the car. They drove in silence until they were blocks from the rendezvous. Alex asked, "Is it soon?"

Walter said, "Another mile."

Alex gasped and then said, "Is there time to stop? I think I need a moment."

Silent communication. Neither Mulder nor Walter stood close to Alex as he paced. If he ran, he ran. Finally, the trapped animal rambling stopped. Alex shook from head to toe. He raised his head and met Walter's eyes. He said, "Okay, I can do this. I just want you to hold me, both of you, and kiss me."

The streetlights overhead caught Mulder's hands as they framed Alex's face. The rest of Mulder seemed shadowed, as if the luminance of Alex's eyes was the only light left. Mulder didn't entirely let him go as Walter claimed him. Walter could feel them both trembling. 

"Oh God, I keep hoping that you will deliver me." Alex murmured as their lips parted. "What will he do to me now? What will be left of me, Walter?"

Walter clenched his fists. He said, "I don't know, Alex. I'm all out of answers. I do love you. If there was another way..."

Alex said, "Just remember me. Don't forget this no matter what he makes me do."

Walter replied, "We'll always remember, Alex, and this isn't the end. I promise you." 

Alex nodded and looked back at Mulder. He said, "I guess we have to go now."

Mulder couldn't meet Alex's eyes.

After they parked, Mulder held out their last hope. It meagerly reflected the light. "Down the hatch, Alex. This will lead us to you."

Eyes gleaming wet in his pale face, Alex slowly shook his head, but he let Mulder put the transmitter on his tongue and choked it down with the bottle of water that Walter offered him. He settled back, eyes closed, walling them away.

The Smoker was late. The three of them waited, silent, unable to look at each other.

Alex's face shone whitely as car headlights glared suddenly. A black limousine glided to a stop. Walter breathed a sigh of relief as two brutes dragged Scully from the car. Mulder threw a worried glance at Scully, but went around to open the door. Alex tried to get out, but his legs wouldn't support him. Mulder was unashamedly weeping as he helped their lover out of the car.

Walter stood supporting Alex who could not look away from the Smoker's smirking face. "Oh God" he whispered, "Oh God, Walter, tell Mulder if he sees me again it might not be really me. Be careful. I love you. Remember that no matter what happens. I really loved you."

Mulder ran to his partner, rapidly checking. He smiled, a smile that quickly lost its glow as he remembered the price they were paying. He said, "She's alive, Walter. Her pulse feels strong."

Their enemy grinned as he passed Mulder. He walked directly toward Walter. He had something in his hand, something shiny and odd in shape. Walter almost laughed as he realized the incongruous nature of the thing. It was a prong collar, a dog training device, blunt spikes curved to gouge and control a powerful brute.

The Smoking man lowered the thing over Krycek's head and jerked it tight. His nicotine stained hands rasped over Krycek's face in a mockery of a caress. He said, "My mistake was in not treating you like the bitch in heat that you are. Luis and I will take your training in hand now. Oh you don't have to fear for your life, Alex. I've reconsidered. We have so many long days and nights before us until you learn who your master is."

The old man pulled on the collar, abruptly sending Krycek to his knees. "Crawl, Krycek." The man whispered. "Crawl and hope that you manage to cooperate enough to convince me that you'll ever deserve to stand on your two feet again. I hate to make mistakes but I do learn from them. This time when I break you, you will stay broken."

The Smoking man flickered his thin-lipped joyless smile at Walter. He passed Mulder, carrying his beloved partner toward the car. Walter saw Alex lift his head and he saw the rage and hate in those big green eyes. He shivered. There was nothing else that they could do, but he had a feeling that Mulder and he were going to pay for this betrayal...pay for the rest of their lives.

The old man paused and laughed. He said, "I do love these classical references." He threw some shining metal objects down on the ground. 

As the Smoking man pulled Krycek into the long black car, Walter's eyes were drawn to the things that he had thrown. Walter cried out as another piece of his soul died. The man had thrown down silver dollars, thirty pieces of silver. 

Mulder saw them too and moaned, "Oh, God. Oh God, I'm sorry, Alex."

Walter bent and picked up the coins, tears dropping on the concrete of the parking lot as he did so. 

Mulder said, "Walter, you can't ever tell her how we got her back this time. It would kill her." 

Walter shook his head and said, "I wouldn't have the courage, Mulder. We will lie to her. But, just so we don't lie to ourselves," Walter let fifteen silver dollars drop into Mulder's lap. The remaining coins felt like the chains of hell pulling him down. He started the car and drove off into the dark, cold night. Mulder stared straight ahead and Walter knew it was over. He and Mulder would never touch each other again without seeing Alex Krycek crawling away on the end of the Smoker's lead.

Mulder fumbled the transmitter-tracking device from under the seat. He turned it on as they headed for the nearest emergency room. Mulder muttered, "I have him. He's going west. Hurry up. As soon as we get Dana to the hospital, we'll go after him."

So many questions. Dana's name, their relationship, her nearest relative. Their IDs stood between them and arrest. She woke before they finished checking her in. She grasped Mulder's hand and said, "They kidnapped me. I didn't tell them where Alex was. I hope I didn't at least. Did they...did they get him?"

Mulder bleakly said, "They got him. Dana, I'll be back. We planted a transmitter on Alex. Walter and I have to go after him."

Eagerly, both of them reached for the tracking box. No LED blip. Nothing. Just a scrolling useless map. Mulder's phone rang. The voice said, "Clever, Mulder, but not clever enough. There's no trick that we don't know."

Mulder looked up at Walter as he hung up. He said, "I could hear him screaming."

Walter's hand closed on the pile of silver dollars and he flung them into the darkness. The ring of them sounding hollowly in the dark.

The end

I'm so sorry, Alex. I'll get you out of this, I promise.

 

* * *

 

Title: Standing On The Ocean  
Author: Ursula  
Fandom: X-Files  
Pairing: Alex Krycek/Walter Skinner/ Fox Mulder   
Rating: NC-17  
Status: New  
Spoiler Alert: Up to season eight.  
Archive: Anywhere, as a complete story. If you have a constructive critique and wish to use a portion, contact me directly.  
E-mail address for feedback: or   
Series/Sequel: The Fourth Story in Hard Rain's Gonna Fall  
Other websites: My page at RATB, thanks to Ned & Leny: http://www.squidge.org/terma/ursula/ursula.htm  
Disclaimers: Walter Skinner, Fox Mulder and Alex Krycek belong to Fox TV, Chris Carter, and 1040 Productions  
Spoilers: Major ones for Requiem, Within, and Without. There are minor ones for other shows  
Notes: For those that asked, a summary of the story so far:  
In the first story, A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall, Walter and Fox meet Alex, who is on the run from Spender and working as a hooker, at one of the sex clubs that Walter frequents. They have two beautiful days. Alex is supposed to wait out the war in Thailand, but Spender shows up and captures him.  
In second story, Alex is tortured and sold as a slave. Taken as loot in a Middle Eastern revolt, the rebels sell him to an American woman. When his owner dies Alex escapes and runs to his lovers, Spender has him shot before Walter and Mulder find him.  
In third story, Alex has been found. Mulder and Walter bring him to an old farmhouse to care for him. However Scully is kidnapped. Spender offers a devil's bargain. Alex for Scully. Walter and Mulder think they can have both back as they have had Alex swallow a transmitter. Spender however suspects everything and found the transmitter. What follows includes Melissa Scully's death. Bill Mulder's murder, and infection of Skinner by the nanobytes. All events between the Paperclip and this story should be assumed to follow cannon.  
And here we are:  
Warnings: Death but not of my guys. This story contains violence, abuse, and a three-way relationship. It also contains true love, redemption, forgiveness, heroism and other objectionable values.  
Thanks to Karen S. as always for her beta and for her unwavering support.  
No less to Dr. Ruthless for another writing lesson desperately needed.   
To Lorelei, for her gentle prodding which kept me somewhere near the promised date for production.

* * *

Standing On The Ocean  
Part 1 of 6  
By Ursula

Penal colony, Forj Sidi Toui, Tunisia

"I am diminished." Alex thought, lifting his face to the rusted showerhead and letting the blood colored water trail down his dusty flesh. "He flayed me and dropped ashes in my wounds. He cauterized me with the acid of hatred and I was made a weapon in that crucible." A smile crossed his lips. "But a weapon can be turned on its maker."

In that cell, that wall of sweltering human flesh, Alex had dreamed of cool, clean water, of things cold: transparent glistening ice, the white snow of Russia, and of Marita's pale beauty like an icicle in female form. Now, she was here. Alex felt the hot rage in him, but not at Marita. She was only the envoy. Spender had put him in this prison to punish him and to break him again. Instead, Alex had grown stronger. Every day of suffering was one more day to forge a sword of his hatred, to plot, and to scheme.

Alex was fury. He was agony. He was nemesis. He burned for revenge. It was sweeter to him than life. 

The hotel was close to what passed for first class in Tunisia. Marita had expensive tastes; she had reserved the presidential suite. Alex had dressed in the clothing she brought for him, but his skin still itched from body lice. His short hair ran with minute life.

It surprised him that she didn't mock him. Instead she led him to the big clean bathroom and had him sit on the toilet seat while she deloused him. The denim shirt and pants went into a plastic sack for disposal. The noxious fumes made him gag, but that was a minor problem. Someone had taken his food while he was defending it from another more obvious marauder. His stomach was shrunken, empty as his soul felt to him.

When he was clean, Marita dressed him in silk and linen. She bathed him with her cool, slender hands, and as she bandaged the wounds she whispered to him. Told him what had happened to Mulder, to Skinner, to Scully. Her impassive face considered him, cupped his genitals in her hand. He shook his head. He had no desire left - at least not for Marita; her cool lips grazed his forehead in a sort of weird benediction.

Aboard the plane, Alex sat silently beside Marita. He had nearly forgotten speech in that hellhole. He had fought every day - fought like an animal for a scrap of food, a drink of water, a place to sleep. He'd sold himself to a vicious bandit for a jagged homemade knife and when the man demanded he serve once too often, he had gutted him. The guards didn't care as long as they didn't see it. In the morning, trustees dragged away the stripped bodies. Alex lost count of the men he killed. All he cared about was that they feared him. The other prisoners named him Iblis ...the devil.

When they brought the meal, Alex fell on it and ate with fierce concentration. He stuffed his mouth and guarded his plate with the artificial arm Marita had brought to him. Finished, he looked up to see her eyes gazing at him. 

"Don't laugh at me. Don't pity me," he snarled.

Marita reached over and exchanged her plate for his. She said, "I wouldn't do either. Your will to survive surprises me." Her pale face was beautiful again - as pure as a saint's in her passion. She said, "I want him dead too." Considering him with her glacial eyes she asked, "Are you strong enough for that?"

 "Yes," Alex answered.

>>>>>>>>>>

Alex watched at the window, watched his face flicker against the dark background of the night sky. He remembered. Betrayer. Betrayed. Running back to his lovers ...

Alex couldn't forget. He'd been weak and vulnerable. His lovers had offered him up as a sacrifice.

He remembered crawling away in terror. He had wanted to touch his stomach, assure himself of the salvation signaling in his belly. Hands on him stripping him. Inside of him. Fingers shoved up his anus, a parody of lovemaking. Filthy fingers sweeping his mouth and then with a sudden thrust down his throat. Spender offered his presumptuous, arrogant smile and sank his fist into Alex's stomach. On his knees, retching, vomiting the tracer, spewing his last chance of freedom onto the ground.

Pain, dark twisting agony and loneliness were like a sculptor's blade... Spender had carved him away. Molded him. Changed him. Made of him a weapon to fit to the Smoking Man's hand. 

Alex remembered...a demon cathedral of fragments, of images in hell-spawned color.

Melissa Scully's hair, a dark crimson spill. Her white face like an albino poppy, the small line of pain across her smooth pale forehead. Alex knew it wasn't Scully. He could have accepted Scully's death. They had said they loved him, but gave him up to get Scully back. It was Cardinal's shot. Alex had hesitated. Some fatal weakness not yet excised from him. What had Spender said? "I'll suck your soul out, Alex. You will be what I made you. Or you will cease to be an annoyance."

His mind flashed stills from the snapshots that were his life; Mulder's father dead on the floor. The yellow jaundice that cirrhosis had painted his skin; the gray of his hair; the pale blue of his eyes; after the flare of the shot, maroon finger painting on the white tiles of the floor. 

Alex did it. He was there, but was he guilty? 

Sitting in that car...waiting to be told what to do next, Alex had registered the softness in Cardinal's voice. His body had screamed in warning. Luis only sounded like that when he was twisting the blade, tightening the rack. Alex's eyes fell on the blinking light. 

Running. Running. Wiser this time. Alex had stood outside of Mulder's apartment and watched the lights go on and off. Waited in the darkness to see Walter and to paint his image deep on his soul, he took the vision emblazoned on his eyes with him back to hell with him.

>>>>>>>>

His body, still beautiful, armored now in indifference, served him. Hong Kong was always to him merely a vision of bright lights reflected in the gutter. His body bent and knelt like a marionette. His face was a mask. He was a simulacrum, turning this way and that, without shame, without feeling, empty, empty, empty. 

Oh yes, he had not been empty for long. Blackness filled him and cold. It was like Novocain, his whole body numb, like looking through a foggy window. The creature hadn't bothered to kill him. Perhaps the Oilien and Spender shared the same sense of humor. They said he was a creature of darkness, but Alex loathed the dark. 

Waking, Alex looked up into the sewed-shut face of an alien rebel. Thoughts impaled his brain. Serve or die? He chose serve. He couldn't die like this, wanting the sky overhead, clean air for his last breath. 

Freedom...that's what they wanted - freedom from the Oiliens who bound them with slavery more hellish than even existed on earth. Alex understood. He finally knew the meaning of that expression, a fate worse than death. He had been raped soul-deep. He had been ridden and discarded. His every thought had writhed as if under a microscope, and now he burned for justice; craved revenge, as he had once desired Mulder and Skinner's love. 

It really hadn't changed much. Alex still didn't know half of what he was doing. He seemed doomed to be a pretty pawn in this hellish game of kings.

*****

Alex's mouth quirked in a smile that may as well have been a grimace of pain. He remembered, seeing Mulder and later, Walter. 

He wore their bruises on his flesh, deeper wounds in his soul. Mulder dragging him like a dog, using him in cold hatred. His body beneath Mulder's in a St. Petersburg hotel room. Abased. Agonized. Mulder's sweat falling on him burned like acid. He had thought he'd lost the ability to cry, but tears ran down his face as he felt that touch upon him. He had never thought he would hate the feel of being taken by his lover....

Oh, he had learned his lesson; the final one under the cold, clear sky of Tunguska, lying there begging the night for help. Mother, Walter, Mulder.... no one came - not even death, and Alex had finally prayed to be relieved, to be taken as he lay, his back freezing on the cold, hard ground while his arm burned, burned with an agony that would not be assuaged.

So he screaming rose from the earth, staggered a few steps, and fell. Staggered and fell until he came to the camp of his enemy where he traded the last mote of his self-respect for a shining, sacred needle with the blessed heroin. 

****

Marita tugged him through the airport. He was dazed, part of his brain still dulled from the long imprisonment. He stared at the people whirling by, so clean, so busy, and so unaware. He wanted to make a sign. He wanted to stand there like a mad man, yelling that they weren't coming; they were here. He wanted to grab their faces and tell them to fight, to live, to stop running for one minute and just breathe. Just breathe and realize what they had.

Marita ushered him into her car, a sleek black thing, polished and primed. Alex said, "Nice car. He pays you well."

"That cheap bastard? Hardly. I have my own resources," Marita said. 

As Alex slumped back into the seat, his mind drifted back to the prison. It had happened to fast and he was still confused, sluggish with shock. Marita stared at him for a moment then added, "Alex, pull yourself together or he'll eat you alive."

Alex laid his head back against the smooth upholstery. It was red inside. Red as blood.

Marita drove aggressively. Alex wondered about her. What did she want now? Did she want to be Spender? Alex felt like laughing. All he really wanted was for the last four years of his life never to have happened.

Spender was still in the same place he had been the last time that Alex had seen him. The place held memories. All bad ones.

The stairs might as well be to a scaffold. He remembered crawling up them with Spender's laughter goading him and those stained fingers caressing his face mockingly. 

"You're an animal, Alex. My animal. You do as I please or I'll make you beg for death."

Alex shivered as he reached the faded carpet in the hallway. Marita knocked on the door firmly. A blonde woman answered. Spender had a taste for blondes. She said, "He's anxious to see you."

Alex stared through her. She was nothing. She didn't matter. Marita followed him into the room. Spender was pallid, unnatural, an albino spider in his web. His lips seemed black as though he had been drinking blood. He smelled of death. He always smelled of death, but this time, it was different. This time it was his own death that was heavy in the air. Spender's throat bore a stoma. His voice, which had always had an oily whispering sound, now sounded foul and ghostly. 

"I was worried about you, Alex."

Alex struggled with repulsion. It had to be a trick. This man who had kept Alex twisting on a rope for his entire adult life could not be dying. He shook off his fear and said, "Cut the crap, old man."

Spender smiled and said, "I heard about your incarceration."

Alex's hands knotted into fists. A serpent can poison after death. He didn't want to touch Spender. He replied, "You had me thrown in that hellhole."

"For trying to sell something that was mine, was it not? I hope we can all move forward... Put the past behind us. We have a singular opportunity now." How fluidly the words flowed out. Alex's eyes searched, looking for electric eyes, concealed doors. He was sure that the old devil must have some trick. He wouldn't dare be this defenseless no matter how sure he was that he had broken Alex. 

Alex listened to him. Slowly his blood cooled. He would obey. Perhaps this alien ship would be useful. His mind shuddered away from the thought of contact with them again, but he had a purpose that must be served. If this latest accident harbored anything helpful, then he needed to find it. His mouth went dry for a moment. Would Mulder be on the trail?

***

This was who he was now...fierce, hell bent on survival, the taste for revenge like an addictive craving...Alex hunted. What game was Spender playing? Alex followed Mulder and Scully for a while. He snarled to himself as he saw their closeness; saw the bitch with her hand on Mulder's arm. It was all he could do to keep from bursting in and throwing her out of that bed. How dare she claim the warmth of his body, the touch of his hands? Alex had been the sacrifice for her. He'd gone without a fight to Spender to save Scully's life, and now she was trespassing...taking what was his.

The ship eluded him. Alex could smell it, feel it nearby and when he watched Mulder he saw that his lover felt the same chill. Mulder also must feel the hair rising in alarm, the urge to flee...the whole town smelled of black death, of the alien's foul intrusion. Spender was playing with them as usual. Even dying, the old man still spun his web.

He heard Spender's warped humor again, his smile curving around an oxygen tube. Alex eyed the thing, hoping the man would forget and light up with the tank in the room. He'd have danced around the flames in savage delight. 

"I'm sure you'll find a way to get Agent Mulder back there. You have often surprised me with your initiative, Alex." Spender said.

'What the hell?' Alex thought. 'What did the devil want now?'

Walking, prowling in a park, knowing what he would have to do...Alex fought it. He felt the shape shifter rather than saw him. The aliens all made the skin over his spine itch. "Your arm." The man said. His stalwart jaw and blue eyes faced Alex with the usual indifference. Alex saw the hypodermic in the hybrid's hand. "Wh.. what?", the slight stutter reappearing despite the efforts of Spender's voice coaches.

"A weapon." The pseudo-man said. 

Sitting on a park bench, Alex bared his arm, winced at the bite of the needle. The stuff burned. His voice sounded rougher than ever as he leaned back, eyes closed to ride out the discomfort. "What does this do?" Alex asked. It hadn't been trust that made him accept the injection. Trust had died at the end of Spender's leash. It was fear and that was his constant companion. A living, screaming presence inside him, boon companion for the hatred he bore Spender.

The hybrid said, "An antibody. I will explain at a later point."

Alex watched the huge figure move off. He still felt dizzy and overly warm. He opened the woolen coat he wore, a fawn colored soft thing that reminded him of Mulder. Someone approached out of the darkness. Alex looked at a heavyset man who was sweating slightly despite the chill. 

"I've been watching you," the man said in a syrupy voice. "A man such as you shouldn't be alone on a night like this. Why don't we go some place warm for a few drinks?"

Some place warm...Alex's lip twitched in a bitter twist of a smile. That reminded him. He stood up without responding to the would-be john and set out to look for a taxi.

***

"All in good time," Alex had hissed. Walter's hand traced the cut on the balcony, never repaired, a wound in the wood as surely as Krycek was a wound on his soul. He picked up his drink, tasting it. It was bitter, sour with his despair. Time weighed on him, pressed on him like stones, moment by moment like the slow drip of water torture. No wonder that an ache clawed from inside, threatening to burst like a scream from his throat. And once a moan emerged, if he should release a whimper, he would be undone. They would cart him away with a keening madness in his voice, an inner hell spewing from his eyes.

Walter heard a sound and whirled around. His muscles bunched, a raw primal sensation as if his splendid body knew the answers. Like hell! 

There he stood as if conjured by Walter's masochistic trip down memory lane. He wore an expensive business suit. Even the elegant cut could not conceal that he was thin; Alex burned now with an inner fire that seemed to have seared every ounce of softness from his body. Diamond hard eyes shone like a wild thing's green glowing orbs, a mysterious glint caught in the darkness before vanishing, beyond identifying.

Walter swallowed the dryness; his throat felt as if he had consumed powdered glass. Still, his head rose. His voice when he found it was as strong although with the timbre of a hero facing the firing squad. He said, "This time, Krycek, I think I would rather die."

Alex sneered. Hard to believe Walter had found that mouth sweet. That his blunt fingers used to trace those lips hoping to see one of Alex's tender smiles. Alex came over and ran his hand over the cut in the rail. 

"You never complimented me on my cleverness and nerve, Walter. Seems like you and Mulder agree. A man with a gun encounters another, someone chained by one hand, a man to whom no one bothered to give so much as a drink of water for more than twenty-four hours, a man half frozen by a night spent shivering on his former lover's balcony. The man with the gun stalks the other and the man chained out like an unwanted dog defends himself. Did you think he wouldn't have killed me? But I survived. I took a risk and lured him to my one chance of survival. Please forgive me, Walter, for living."

Walter threw his glass down and retorted, "Don't try guilt on me, Alex. I don't owe you any sympathy. You made all the choices."

Alex considered the shards at his feet, bent and scooped up the fragments. "Seems symbolic, doesn't it? Here I am picking up the pieces again."

Wordlessly, Alex walked in and threw the broken glass away. Walter followed. He poured another drink, hesitated, and made another for his unwelcome guest. Alex accepted it, but set it aside. He took off his suit jacket; lay his shoulder-holstered gun beside it. He carried a small-of-the-back spare, and another strapped to his ankle. Finally, Alex tossed Walter a small innocuous seeming palm pilot. "This is it. Believe me or not. I don't care. I'm the only one who ever knew the frequency. This is the only one that can activate or deactivate the nanocytes."

"Now, what's your game?" Walter asked, fingers reflexively closing on the device.

Alex's long lashes veiled his eyes. He said, "This is the final hour of the ball, where we unmask and find what mysteries have been played and to what end. I'm tired, Walter, sick and tired." 

His glance seemed naked, ravaged, laid open, and bleeding. Walter stepped forward. Lies, all lies, his mind told him but one hand stretched out and touched Alex's cheek. "You damned near killed me." He reproached.

"And I would do it again." Alex said. "Once, I was flawed, weak, easily manipulated by fear, by love, by guilt, and rage, but never again. I needed you immobilized. I needed to imperil you so the king would be exposed, leaving the opponent to rush in so I could pick the pieces off one at a time. It worked, and that is all the justice there is."

Walter stroked Alex's cheek, touched his mouth, thrilled to the half forgotten pleasure of touching his hair. Walter's body shook with need. God, when had he last touched another with pleasure? Even the club offered no surcease to the emptiness in his heart. 

Hooking a finger in Alex's tie, Walter drew it down, looking into his eyes to see if he would be refused...and punished. Alex's face was still, seemingly gentle. Walter used both hands then and removed the tie. He unfastened the first buttons of the linen and silk shirt. He flinched as he discovered the arm. Mulder had told him about it, but he had not quite believed. Alex's eyes held amusement and challenge. His voice softly sibilant, Alex said, "You can stop now. It wouldn't surprise me, not one bit. I'm not a pretty boy anymore, Walter. Not someone to seduce. Not someone to hire and to serve up to Mulder like a fancy dessert. Not someone who can easily be persuaded to be traded for someone you deem more worthy."

Walter winced as he heard that last. Armored in denial, what did Mulder call it? Transference and substitution. If Alex was always evil then what they did was perfectly acceptable. There were no words, and no pretty lacquer to varnish over any of the sins that had been committed for love, for loyalty, for honor.

Walter unbuttoned Alex's cuffs and eased the shirt back, leaving it tangled and binding on two wrists, one which throbbed with a fast beating pulse and the other, still, bloodless, lifeless.

Alex leaned back against the wall, eyes half closed. Walter moved forward to kiss the hollow of his throat. Oh the taste of him...like the sweet cell-deep recognition of an alcoholic's first thirsty drink of wine after abstinence, and the feeling in Walter's chest, aching and yearning. Alex was like the breath of oxygen in the lungs of a man saved from drowning.

Walter's kisses, his ravaging, addicted kisses, flew downward. His tongue explored the upright nipples, dabbled lower, finding a half forgotten trail between the pectorals. Alex wore something; he was bitter and sweet to Walter's taste. Alex's stomach heaved as he kissed it. Walter laid his cheek against the smooth flesh. Alex's hand slowly left the wall. It rested atop his head, caressed once, twice, before being withdrawn to once again support the trembling body.

Moaning softly now, Walter unbuckled the leather of the belt. His hands parted the ends and then swiftly lowered the zipper. Black silk briefs, embroidered fly. Someone must be dressing Alex these days. He'd never bothered with such details in the past.

To kneel at Alex's feet and bury his face in his lover's groin, worshipping him, breathing him in...fingers clasped, kneading the tender buttocks. Shuddering Walter stayed like that until Alex's hips nudged him further. He said, "Give me your foot."

Boots and socks flung across the floor. Suit pants draped across his desk, covering his PC, knocking papers to the floor. Now, to stand for a moment and just look. Alex arched and offering. His cock erect in the nest of his raven black bush. His lean body quivering with nervous energy. Oh God, oh God, nothing else mattered, but to have him.

As he freed Alex's arms, Walter did not hesitate over the cold feel of the prosthesis. Alex smiled sphinx-like. His hand reached up to brush Walter's chest then asked, "Where's the bedroom?"

Walter couldn't speak. He merely stumbled toward the door. Alex followed and stood looking about. Walter could see Alex's sharp feral gaze exploring the window, checking for exits, and casing the place until he knew every possible obstacle or escape. Now Alex tested the quilt covered bed and said, "Nice, I like a firm mattress, but then you know that, don't you?"

Bold as a magpie, Alex opened the drawer of the bedside table. He looked up surprised and said, "Where the hell do you keep it?"

Walter had to pull himself together to answer. He said, "Medicine cabinet. The issue hardly comes up enough to be ready all the time."

Laughing softly, Alex said, "Mulder's in his second virgin-hood?"

Walter bluntly stated, "You think after what happened that we could stand to look each other in the eye?"

Alex let his laugher roll out like a consuming flow of lava. "Don't have to look each other in the eye to do that. If you really let each other go, you were even more foolish than I remember. I won't let anything that dumb get in the way of my desire. I want you, Walter. I want you so badly..."

A groan shook Walter's chest. He had to catch a stagger before moving to bring the lubrication and condoms from the bathroom. Alex lay on the bed. He had propped himself up on the pillows. His legs were crossed, but loosely so his cock begged from between the cleft of them.

Alex said, "I want to watch you, Walter. Take off your clothes for me, lover. Let me see you."

Walter's fingers felt as if they were frozen. He kept losing his grip on his buttons, tangling in his clothing. He had a notion that Alex would laugh at him when he had stripped, mock his weakness, and get up to leave, or torture him, one the same as the other.

Eyes narrowing, Alex lifted his face, tilting it as an offering. His tongue flickered over his lips. He lifted his arm, reaching for Walter as he knelt on the bed. Alex's skin was hot in the cool of the room. His face tasted of salt from Walter's tears.

"I'm here." Alex said, "How do you want me?"

The room felt sweltering. The bed was cool beneath his knees. Walter worshipped. Kissing Alex's throat as it arched for him, he couldn't stop exploring everywhere. He stopped for a moment, saying, "You taste the same. Sweet and salty like chocolate, rich as honey."

The right hand, Alex's only hand, caressed Walter's head, the back of his neck, before kneading Walter's back like a kitten's paw. It almost broke him down, remembering the missing pressure from the left side. Yet a wounded and incomplete Alex was a finer thing than any perfect, but lesser beauty.

His nipples were as pink as Walter remembered. Mulder's were longer and more pointed, but Alex's furled like buds and bloomed, as he tasted each one. Walter nibbled the lines of collarbones, so pure and truly as graceful as wings. He laid his cheek against Alex's breast, feeling the almost sharp center. Alex's heartbeat was fast. He could keep his face impassive, but even he couldn't fool his own heated blood.

Alex's ribs stood in relief on his pale torso. His stomach was concave. What had Spender done with him to leave him so emaciated? Walter paused in his kisses and said, "Alex, I am sorry. It was wrong what we did. Every fucking thing has been wrong since we did that."

"Love me," was Alex's response and he winced at his own words, perhaps he had meant to say 'fuck me' instead. He stirred, and pressed Walter's head lower. 

His lover was no Greek statue, no soft question mark of cock, an afterthought among sculptured curls. Alex's cock was perfectly shaped, centered, proportioned. It quivered as he licked the blood-heated skin. He ran his lips up and down over the shaft. His hand caressed the balls gently, the way that Alex liked. Alex arched his hips. He handed Walter the lube and said, "Touch me inside."

The husky voice was textured. It always sounded as if he had just been fucked. Walter's cock leapt at the words, and he ignored his own arousal. Alex's surrender was what he craved. To see the white teeth nipping at the ruddy lips. The eyes open, wet with lust. The way Alex's whole body offered itself to desire. Powerful legs pushing upward. Chest heaving. Skin anointed with his sweat. Walter nearly came as he teased himself with the image of his beloved's pleasure.

Carefully, as if opening a virgin, Walter slid one of his thick fingers inside Alex's heat. "Yes," Alex hissed. "Fast. Hard. Please."

Enveloping the eager cock, Walter took him deep, surrounded him as his finger mimed a cock, coaxing Alex closer and closer to the edge. 

Alex moaned and then screamed. His body lunged, abandoned, hips thrusting hard. Walter felt the jet of come into his mouth and accepted it, cherished it. Alex's legs trembled in after shock. He turned on his side, hiding his face. Walter slid in behind him, curving around the trembling body. He rolled Alex into his embrace, his hand stroking the quivering back again and again until his lover stopped shaking. Walter planted another kiss on the hollow at the base of Alex's throat. He said, an offering, "I love you."

The hand that came to fit around his yearning cock was familiar. It knew all the touches that would arouse him. They spoke a secret language here in bed, one that only three had known, a trinity of desire and love. Walter could only close his eyes and thrust into the hand, gripping the hard surface of Alex's left arm like an anchor to the earth while his mind launched into an oblivion of pleasure.

Sleep must have befallen him immediately after. Alex must have gotten out of bed at some point to clean them. Now, Walter's cock nestled in the valley between soft, round buttocks; that had aroused him even in his slumber. Walter moved back, not wanting Alex to think he was trying to take advantage. Alex uttered a soft puppy grunt of annoyance and pressed back. Walter's right hand was asleep, trapped beneath Alex's head. Alex's hair felt like silk beneath the benediction of Walter's kiss.

Drowsily, Alex murmured, "Make love to me. I've been starved for you."

Walter couldn't find the lube and the condoms for a moment. He had to leave his snug resting place to find them. His fingers slid back into Alex's entrance, moving to find his prostate. Alex's hips jerked in rhythm. He opened easily - too easily for him to have been celibate for long. As if in answer to Walter's thoughts, Alex explained, "I'm not ashamed anymore about what I have to do to survive." 

Wanting to ask, but knowing better, Walter said, "You never had any reason to be ashamed, Alex."

Sliding the condom onto his eager cock, Walter's hand trembled. He loved to be inside of Alex, loved feeling the connection and possession as much as the act itself. He slicked his latex clad length and entered gently, feeling Alex relax around him as they both sighed at the familiar sensations. 

Despite the passion, there was no roughness about this act. This was an act of absolution for both of them. They were safe harbors for each other. Home is the sailor; home from the sea...Alex was where he belonged at last. As they moved, Mulder was a ghostly presence for both of them, but it still felt complete. 

Silence afterwards. Lying thigh against thigh, drifting in thought yet still half connected in body and all the more one in their warrior spirits. Walter wanted to drift off again; never wanted to leave this bed; never wanted to lose Alex again, but Alex rolled away and sat up. He reached down to kiss Walter's forehead and said, "We have things to do, lover. I'm going to ask for you to trust me as I once trusted you."

It was like a sudden blow. Walter said, "But I betrayed you. Mulder and I turned you back over to Spender. We didn't mean to do it. The sensor failed."

Alex replied, "He found it. Yeah, I know you didn't exactly mean to do it but you loved Scully more."

"We were soldiers." Walter stated bluntly. "She was our comrade. We thought we could get you both back. Still, what else could we have done, Alex? Let her die?"

Moving across the room toward the bathroom, Alex looked lean and lethal, hardly the defenseless youngster his nudity should have made him. He looked over his shoulder and replied, 'Just remember that sometimes the choices become very difficult, Walter."

Not wanting to analyze what that meant, Walter nodded and followed Alex into the shower.

***

His beloved basketball bouncing repeatedly in the air was almost as comforting as the medication hidden in the skin magazine in his desk. Mulder contemplated the spinning ball, a thin surface surrounding empty air...a simile for his life.

"Agent Mulder?"

So formal now. That was Walter, always correct in the office. Most people couldn't see behind the starch and bleach-white shirts. Mulder knew his weaknesses. He knew what Skinner looked like purple-faced on the verge of coming, or groaning and panting as Mulder fucked him. It had been a long time...

Looking defiantly toward his boss and former lover, Mulder asked, "What's our punishment this time? Thumbscrews or forty lashes? Come on in, Walter. Sit a spell. This could be the last time you take a trip down to these offices."

Mulder sat the ball on his desk and eyed Walter, waiting.

"You went to Oregon." Walter stated. It was flat sounding, lacking surprise. But nothing much that Mulder did could shock Walter now.

With more compassion than he usually showed or felt during these jousts with Walter, Mulder replied, "Guilty as charged. And if they're coming down on you for that, then I'm sorry. I truly am."

Walter nodded faintly, acknowledgment of things unsaid. He replied, "Fortunately, they think that I make a contribution to the Bureau."

"Oh well yeah, stick to a budget, they say you're making a contribution, but push the limits of your profession, and they say you're out of control." Mulder retorted.

Walter towered over Mulder in the chair. He wasn't really taller, but his parade-ground posture and macho attitude added imaginary mass. Mulder's boss's voice was gentle as he said, "You could bring home a flying saucer and have an alien shake hands with the President ... what it comes down to, Agent Mulder, is ... they don't like you."

"Well, we didn't bring home a flying saucer ... or an alien." Mulder admitted. It was a time of last chances for him. Or so he'd been told. Soon he'd be no more than a moral lesson. Icarus, empty-handed, plummets to earth and death...

"Yeah ... so I've been told." Walter's voice was nearly tender. He seemed surprisingly calm. No lecture. No reproach. 

Mulder looked at him, wanting to tell him everything or possibly just to savor some comfort. Walter stepped back and gestured at unseen people.

Mulder's depression disappeared as Krycek appeared in the doorway and entered the room. There was joy in this. In forgetting the concerns over the waste of his life. He leapt for Krycek, a simian defense of his territory against this hated rival.

The grip was implacable. Mulder wanted to scream in rage and tear Krycek limb from limb. Roll in his blood....and then die, weeping.

Walter shook him in his strong grip, blocking him from getting at his nemesis. " Agent Mulder! I think you should listen to him."

Krycek looked different again. He was thin, tired, elegantly clad. His voice was the same, husky and intimate, filled with intimidations of his passion, "You've got every reason to want to see me dead."

'Damn right' Mulder thought. His fingers were itching to crush that swanlike throat, to gouge out the verdantly green eyes. He lunged, trying to break Skinner's grip.

"But you've got to listen to me now. You have the singular opportunity." Krycek continued.

"Here, or you want to step outside?" Mulder retorted, sounding childish even to his own ears.

Covarrubias sidled closer. She was cold grace, chill beauty, the icy demon-queen to Alex's fiery devil. She said, "Agent Mulder. Cancerman is dying."

Walter let him go and walked away although still hovering protectively near their lover, their enemy.

Marita said, "His last wish is to rebuild his Project, to have us revive the Conspiracy. It all begins in Oregon."

And now the pavane sounded. Dance me closer, Mulder thought, closer and closer to death and still fettered with lies...

Krycek said, "The ship that collided with that Navy plane. It's in those woods."

If Mulder closed his eyes, he could imagine the young agent that Krycek had pretended to be, holding out his file as a bribe to be included.

"There's no ship in those woods." Mulder replied.

"Yeah, it's there." Krycek met his eyes. No mystery there for once. He looked as sincere as he always had. Rail thin. Was he ill too? Krycek said, "Cloaked in an energy field. While he...mops up the evidence." 

Hooked again and knowing it, Mulder could almost have smiled. He asked, "Who?"

Eyes lowered. Alex explained, "The Alien Bounty Hunter. Billy Miles. Teresa Hoese, her husband. He's eliminating proof of all the tests. We're asking ourselves, we're asking ourselves, "Where are they?" They're right there. They're right under our noses." Krycek met Mulder eyes and said, "I'm giving you the chance to change that, to hold the proof." 

Tired, wishing it could be the truth. The damned whole truth for once instead of a trail of crumbs leading to a gingerbread house of deceit and danger, Mulder asked, "Why me, and why now?"

"I want to damn the soul of that Cigarette Smoking Son-of-a-Bitch." Alex said viciously.

And Mulder knew that was true if nothing else was.

"Mulder?" Scully said, her voice conveying her shock as she took in the intruders.

Mulder sighed. Time to play the same old game...go down fighting - or just lie down and die.

***

Wanting the Lone Gunmen in on this, Mulder was willing to wait. Covarrubias was left in Skinner's conference room. Krycek followed Skinner into the private area of his office. Mulder remembered Walter's illness, suspected that might have something to do with Walter's acceptance. At least, he wanted to believe that. The alternative was too painful. 

Mulder filled Scully in, expected doubt as well as her support and wasn't disappointed on either count. Scully brushed by him to confront Skinner. Krycek came out of the office, walking in the direction of the restroom. Mulder followed him into the restroom, watching with what seemed to him a sick desire as Krycek urinated and washed his hand. The man continued to ignore him until he approached the door. 

It was madness to grab him. Lunacy to force a kiss on him. Alex's mouth yielded with the sweetness of forbidden fruit before the man shoved him away and knocked him on his ass with a well-timed punch. 

"I'm not your fuck toy anymore. If you want me, you will ask, Mulder," growled Krycek

Stunned, Mulder got to his feet. He asked, "What did you do to persuade Skinner? Torture him again or merely fuck him?"

Shaking his head, Krycek answered, "I used reason with him, Mulder, a tactic I know you wouldn't understand. The past..."

Mulder expected him to say that it no longer mattered. Instead, Krycek smiled and his eyes softened, "isn't over yet. I remember. Can you? Or do you just want to believe it was entirely my fault?"

"I don't know." Mulder replied, yearning suddenly to see him the way he used to be, not this scarred and wary creature, holding himself so stiffly out of reach. Fingers outstretched, Mulder almost caressed his former lover's face before dropping his hand and turning away. He listened to the door shut before he leaned on the wall, not weeping, but weak with grief and lost chances. 

***

It was almost funny for the group of them to be around one table. Scully was the most uncomfortable. She stood as far away from Krycek as possible, her arms crossed protectively over her body. 

Their shoulders brushing at times, Krycek and he looked like the partners that they had once been, Mulder thought. The scent of him...some combination of shaving lotion and perhaps perfume interacted with his naturally enticing pheromones to evoke memories and lust. Mulder tried hard to listen to Frohike instead of imagining Alex nakedly sprawled across that table, his legs over Mulder's shoulders and yielding to him with that eagerness he had shown in the past.

"What's amazing is that even the military satellites don't see it." Frohike remarked, excited.

"But J.P.L.'S Topex Poseidon shows it only as waveform data." Langly countered.

Byers' long elegant finger pointed to a printout and said, "And here it appears simply as a microburst of transmission error on the European Space Agency's ERS-2."

Walter had been standing aloof after briefly stating their goals in this think-tank. Now, leaning on the table, he asserted some control and redirection. "In other words?" 

"In other words, you'd never know it's a UFO." Frohike shot back.

Like an identical twin or long time lover, Byers seemed to add his words as if in seamless continuity with his partner's. "If you didn't know what you were looking at or looking for."

"No wonder we couldn't see them." Langly added.

As impatient as ever, Krycek commented, "Listen, it is not going to be there forever."

'Who was Marita to Krycek?' Mulder wondered jealously. Last time he had seen her, he had thought she was his ally. It stunned him to see her with Krycek and bothered him that they seemed well acquainted. She seemed in some distant way as possessive of Alex as Scully was of Mulder. She said, "As we all stand here talking it's rebuilding itself." 

Scully's expression was that of a cat in a dog pack; she was as out of place as Walter and not as able to remain neutral about any subject. She walked out of the room and after a second, Mulder followed her, shutting the rest of them out of the conversation he knew that he needed to have. 

Scully turned back toward him after pacing down the hall and said, "Mulder, if any of this is true..."

 "If it is, or if it isn't, I want you to forget about it, Scully." Mulder answered. He thought that he and Krycek would go as they had to Russia.

Scully gave him 'Are you nuts" expression number three. "Forget about it?" She exclaimed, voice approaching shrill.

"You're not going back out there. I'm not going to let you go back out there." Mulder replied.

"What are you talking about?" Scully asked. Suspicion and concern both registered on her face. The frown line appeared on her forehead.

"It has to end sometime. That time is now." And Mulder realized he could be speaking of so many things.

Scully sighed and crossed her arms again, "Mulder..." that tone of affection and frustration he'd heard so often...

The memories of her abduction all rushed back. Mulder said, "Scully, you have to understand that they're taking abductees. You're an abductee. I'm not going to risk..." He struggled to keep his voice firm, but it shook a little despite his attempt to keep the emotions under control, "losing you."

"I won't let you go alone." She said, as they embraced, holding tightly together, mates of a sort, not as he had been with Alex, but a relationship based on a warm steady emotion, built of mutual goals and weathered like an old married couple's tried and true affection. 

Mulder said, "I won't."

But it wasn't Alex that went with him after all.

***

After the meeting, Walter went down to his car. Alex ghosted behind him and got inside. He slumped back and said, "You could tell me to get the hell out and I'd obey you."

Walter replied, "I'd be a fool to do that. Wouldn't I?"

Alex covered his hand briefly. "It was hard seeing him, harder than I thought. Every time, I remember him hitting me. The other things he did. Using me. Mocking me. What happened in Russia... I must be pretty stupid, Walter. I can't seem to learn how not to love him."

Starting the car, Walter drove back to his apartment. Alex put his arms about him in the elevator. Pressed his face into his back. Silently, they entered his apartment, undressed, and slid naked under the covers and into each other's arms. They didn't make love for a long time. They just held each other, found comfort in the touch and in being held.

After a long while, Walter said, "I'm going with him to Oregon. Are you sure that it's not a trap?"

The eyes remained open and clear, but the crease formed above Alex's nose. He shook his head. "It might be. I don't know. We won't ever know unless we take the bait."

"It's that important?" Walter said, "the end of the world?"

 "Not the end of the world. But for us...for everything human? Well, I imagine the dinosaurs didn't get too much comfort if they knew that they were being replaced by a more efficient model," he said with a sardonic smile.

The one hand reached up to draw him near. Walter surrendered. He'd gone too long with only hate and fear as companions. He'd take this banquet even if he devoured his death. Walter rolled over with Alex atop him. They wrestled briefly until the play grew too arousing. Walter said, "Now, make love to me, Alex."

"You trust me that much after all I did?" Alex questioned, his words sounding shocked.

"I want to believe." Walter quoted. "Make me believe in something, Alex. That we can have it back. That we can forgive. And that eventually, we'll take him down..." No need to explain who that was. Spender had ruined and crippled them both in his way. Alex's lost limb and Walter's lost innocence, the faith in his government that had carried him through Vietnam, into the FBI, until the day the smoking bastard walked into his life and blighted it.

"I'll make you believe that I never stopped loving you." Alex whispered fiercely. "Because it's true. God, even when I wanted to hate you both."

Their mouths joined. One breath. One soul. No artistry in their lovemaking. Just yearning and when Alex entered him, it was as if they could not bear not to be one with the other, connected physically as well as in soul, deep and indestructible passion. Walter groaned and gasped. He hadn't let anyone fuck him since that time in Tacoma with Alex. He had not even let Mulder do it before they set up their separate camps, citadels of loneliness and denial. 

Lost in each other, their world narrowed to each other's eyes, the heat of Alex sheathed in him. The fire of their love speaking the words that Walter didn't want to say again yet which tore from him as he came. "I love you, Alex. Never stopped either."

***

Mulder raised his hand to knock and then on some impulse he felt in his pocket for the talisman he's carried with him all this time. He smiled wryly at the key and tried it in the lock. Damn, it fit. Now that was the story of his life: pounding on the gates and searching for a way to find shelter when he was never locked out anyway.

The apartment was dim, a fact which surprised Mulder. For some reason, it had entered his head that there never had been a good enough reason to stop taking what comfort there was in each other. The shame of their betrayal flayed them, but why had it driven them apart so totally?

If there had been any sound, Mulder wouldn't have gone inside the door. He planned to just go in and undress as if the years between had never happened. He didn't think about the possibility that there would be someone else. That Alex might be there.

Alex didn't see him. He lay sprawled across Walter on the bed. Walter's hand splayed across his ass in that claiming way that he had. 

"Damn you both!"

Jerking Alex from the bed, Mulder threw him to the floor, grabbed his hair, and held a gun to his head. "I'm going to kill you."

"Do it. Just pull the trigger." Alex whispered corrosively.

Mulder sneered and replied; "You think you're safe because I fucked you."

***

Walter stood by. That was his crime and he condemned himself for every time he had done so. He murmured, "Please. Mulder, Alex, don't do this."

Mulder's arm extended, a straight deadly line pointing to his former lover. Alex didn't bow his head. That surprised Walter more than this lingering moment of madness. Finally, he knelt down behind Alex, embracing him. Mulder's hand shook. 

"You want it to end this way? End it, Mulder, or stop the drama." Walter said.

Slowly the gun lowered. Mulder said, "This isn't fair, Walter. It's supposed to be us. All of us..."

Alex growled, "Like I said, you have to ask. And, Mulder, not like it was in Russia. I told you that. I've got things to do, Mulder. Things that don't involve being your punching bag."

The look in Mulder's eyes was painful to behold, but it was about time that the man understood the world didn't quite revolve around him. Walter said, "Now, Mulder, I'll talk to you tomorrow unless you intend to join us?"

Mulder shook his head. He shambled out, slump shouldered as if defeated. Walter hated to let him go, but damned if he would beg him for it. As if that would do any good anyway. After Mulder shut the door, Walter turned to Alex and said, "I should have done something before it went that far."

Shrugging, Alex said, "I'm used to it. Maybe it's my fault. I should have said no to him in the first place." 

Looking like a lost child, Alex said, "But I wanted him so even before I loved you." Alex gazed at him with melting eyes. 

Laughing softly at the guilt-filled expression, Walter held his arms open and said, "Don't you think I knew that? But I wanted you too." 

As Alex folded into his arms, Walter added, "I had you first. I cherish that, Alex. I always have. You took the pain away at a time when my life was very difficult."

"Gave it back though." Alex chided himself.

Walter shrugged and said, "You warned me. When we gave you back to Spender, you warned me. Come back to my bed. Stay the night."

He wanted to say stay forever, but that was tempting fate. Alex followed him and they made love again. Falling asleep in the sweet shelter of each other's arms.

***

The airport terminal seemed to swirl around Mulder. No one asked him to move although he stood in the middle of what should have been the passenger check in line. Mulder looked as if he hadn't slept at all. He remarked, "You're glowing. He's still that good?"

Walter mildly answered, "You'd know if you had stayed."

"As if you two really wanted me to." Mulder said, his eyes sadly saying something different altogether. 

"We have a job to do, Agent Mulder." Walter reminded. Best to separate the parts of his life as he always did.

"We do, don't we?" Mulder agreed. He shouldered his small carry-on and dragged the cart with the equipment.

They didn't say more than a few words on the plane, but Mulder fell asleep, head inclined, not quite touching Walter's shoulder. Walter looked around. No one appeared to be watching. He briefly touched the dark hair. Mulder smiled in his sleep, but murmured, "Alex..."

Walter smiled wryly. It figured. He leaned his chair back and tried to stretch out his cramped legs. Ought to be special seating for tall men...

****

It wasn't police work. More like reconnaissance as he had done in Vietnam. The Oregon rain forest was as dim and dark nearly as the jungles of his nightmares. Walter took the lead at times until the device that Krycek and the Gunmen had built homed in on the ship. Mulder pushed by him, eagerly beginning to plant the pattern of small lights.

Walter kept pace, oddly reminded of a summer in his teens when one of his uncles invited him to stay on his ranch. He'd spent most of the summer, shoveling muck and laying fence line. This felt like both.

"How does this work?" Walter asked as he and Mulder met in the middle. 

Looking up and seeming like the teasing young man that he had been, Mulder said, "I don't know, but budgetarily, I'd say we're looking pretty good."

Frowning, Walter looked around, wishing Alex hadn't pulled a disappearing act. He had said, perhaps joking, perhaps not, 'I've places to go. People to kill."

Concentrating on his task, Walter barely noticed Mulder walking away. When he looked up, the agent was nowhere in sight. He called out, "Agent Mulder? Mulder?"

Feeling like Orpheus in hell, blindly stumbling through impenetrable darkness in his search for Eurydice, Walter crashed through the woods, losing his bearings and almost losing his mind as he called for his lost one. Then the light shot through the sky. It was unnatural, and he understood the way pilots who had seen UFOs spoke of the things now. The hair on his neck rose. 

The search parties, the dogs found nothing. Walter finally had no choice but to return home. Scully had collapsed and was in the hospital. He knew she'd never forgive him for what he had to say. He couldn't even forgive himself.

Voice breaking, he said, "I lost him. I don't know what else I can say. I lost him. I'll be asked... what I saw. And what I saw, I can't deny. I won't." Walter's vision painted on the inside of his eyelids, repeated endlessly. He'd never believed either of his lovers, who dark and light, weak and strong, both told the same strange stories about an alien invasion. Well, now he believed. He would not deny what he'd seen with his own eyes.

The hospital room seemed to narrow, collapsing inward to crush him. Scully said something. He barely heard her. Finally listening, he gaped. Pregnant? It made no sense. He remembered how many times Mulder had said they, the aliens, had taken her ovaries. She seemed to cling to this biological impossibility and he didn't want to take that from her. He took her hand, squeezed it in comfort as she lay with a hand protecting her belly.

'Was it Mulder's?' he wondered, 'or did she harbor some nightmarish creature, the kind of thing that made Alex scream in his sleep and kept Mulder dark-eyed and drawn?

***

Alex didn't need to go to Oregon to hear immediately what happened. Rage filled him. He wasn't sure who had tricked him, but the alien rebels were out of reach. Spender wasn't...

Marita had found him sitting in Mulder's apartment. She held her coat away from Mulder's furniture primly and said, "Alex, do you intend to sit here sulking and moaning or do you want to get him? Do you want out from under him forever? It's time. It's finally time." 

Her voice drew him form his mourning. Alex looked at her elegantly gloved hand and stood. He bowed, kissed the white leather and said, "Lead on, my beautiful dame sans merci."

A toss of her blond hair. She said, "Don't play the fool, Alex. I could do this myself, but I want to share it with you."

She's grown tougher too and colder than him. Alex drew strength from her certainty. 

***

The room smelled of cigarette smoke, of medicine and urine. Of death. What he really deserved was to die like this, a bit at a time. But even dying, this spider still poisoned and killed.

"We've failed, then. Perhaps you never meant to succeed. Anyway... the hour is at hand, I presume." Spender said. He looked at Alex as if he still had all of the control. Still blaming his messes on anyone else.

Spender was too loathsome to touch. Instead Alex grabbed the wheelchair and pushed it toward the door. That would be good enough for him. Just throw him down and hope he kept on falling back to where he belonged.

The nurse stepped forward, asking, "What are you doing?" Marita blocked her, her cold eyes setting barriers even Alex would have thought twice to cross. 

"Sending the Devil back to Hell." Alex replied as he pushed his old enemy to the top of a flight of stairs.

Spender was afraid. Alex sensed that although the old man remained determined to show him nothing. "As you do to Mulder and to me... you do to all of mankind, Alex."

'What did it mean?' Alex didn't know. Just more playing with his head. Or maybe Spender hadn't meant to have Mulder abducted?

Hesitating, Alex tried to decide whether Spender could tell him anything. No, even if he knew, he'd never tell Alex. He'd hold it out like a scrap to torment a starving man just as he dangled secrets in front of Mulder, leading him endlessly on. The wheels rested on the edge...one push. And he did it. The shock of it made his knees weak for a moment.

There was no puff of smoke...no demonic escape. He was an old man crumpled at the bottom of the stairs. Marita came to his side. She viewed the same sight and started moving. With her, Alex walked down the stairs and stepped over the threshold. The nurse was Consortium. She'd know better than to stay around. In fact, she'd probably call a cleaning crew. Alex stepped over Spender's body. To freedom?

***

'Where the hell was Mulder? Where the hell was Krycek?' Walter felt numb, all the questions and no answers. He was under attack. The director had called him to his office. 'What was an AD doing on a field mission...an unauthorized field mission?'

Walter had explained that he was 'fact finding' and it hadn't cost the bureau a thing. Now he was back in his office, feeling trapped. No one had found Mulder, or even one trace of him in Oregon. Walter had gone to his agent's apartment; not much had changed since he'd been there. It was still dark. The blind was closed as always. The books stacked a little higher. The printouts spewing out of their basket. The odd toys littering the desktop. He wasn't there and Walter hadn't even felt closer to him. So he went back to his office to look for UFO sightings and try to trace down the dregs of the consortium.

Another wild goose chase. Walter was exhausted and there were too many players in the game, confusing him. Doggett was royal pain. The man was 'by the book', a fellow marine. Walter remembered a time when supervising such a man would have been a pleasure. Now, he was corrupted by Mulder's insolent attitude toward any rules, Scully's firm belief in her own infallibility, and his own transforming experience with the UFO that had gobbled Mulder.

Thoughts interrupted by Scully's entrance. She looked like a maenad. Walter had seen her angry before and grief stricken. He'd been the target of her ire himself on several occasions. Agent Scully was a straight shooter. You knew where you stood with her. Walter thought it was good to be whole-heartedly on the right side for once. He felt free because although he hadn't seen Alex; he had a message from him. "The devil is dead."

The newspaper and crime reports were mum on the subject, but that didn't surprise Walter. Nor did he blame Alex. Well, unless for not including him in the party... 

Right now the problem at hand was being caused by the idiots tearing apart Mulder's office. Spender might be dead, but Walter knew parts of the conspiracy lived on. Kersch...what was his story? Was he a piece of shit that had floated to the top or something infinitely more corrupt?

Being treated like Mulder gave Walter new insight into his lover's frustration with the FBI. Kersch's comment was enough to make Walter consider resignation... "One more thing. Anything leaves this building about aliens or alien abductions or any other nonsense that might cast the Bureau in a ridiculous light -- hey, you can forget about looking for Agent Mulder. You'll both be looking for new jobs."

***

Parting ways with Marita had been the easiest thing he had done recently. She was as glad to see his back as he was happy to depart. Who knew what was going on behind the model's face and the expressionless blue eyes? 

His 'inheritance,' so to speak, was considerable. Marita and he had divided the consortium's accounts between them. Both of them had copies of the various databases, and Alex had plans to use them. His bugs and spies in the Hoover building stood him well and he was seething at Walter's treatment. His lover was worth a thousand of Kersh, a man long in Spender's pocket, just too stupid to realize it. 

'I have a dream' Alex thought. It might not seem as noble as equality, but it would level the playing field. He started the process of calling in markers and letting the consortium puppets know they had a new master...

***

Bursting into yet another consortium lab behind the mercenaries he'd hired, Alex selected the section head of this project. He was so ordinary. He might have been plucked out of some over the counter drug advertisement. He had that ageless, placeless, not quite military haircut, metal- rimmed glasses, a square jawed, broad face with a broad forehead and blue-gray eyes. He was trim and tall. His neat white lab jacket bore not a single stain. His hands were pale and the skin under his nails was clean. The man should have been dripping ichor and blood.

"Clarke? Knapp Clarke?" Alex said, grabbing a handful of lab coat.

"You're Krycek. You're supposed to be in prison," the man said. 

"Just as I was supposed to be dead. Spender caught a case of that instead." Alex purred. He placed his left hand on the slightly plump neck and exerted a small amount of pressure. "Now, I'm in charge."

Sparing a glance at his well-paid men, Alex said, "Just like the other place, clean it up. Data files in boxes for removal. Destroy the equipment."

Back to Clarke who was shaking now. Alex asked, "What's the purpose of this facility?"

"Human genome preservation." Clarke answered. "We prepare for the future, keeping pure specimens of mankind for a future free of the aliens."

Vats lined the next room. Misshapen forms bobbed lifelessly in giant versions of specimen jars. "Pure?" Alex questioned. 

Primly, Clarke answered, "We have to explore error before we approach perfection."

Hearing a whimper from a covered cage, Alex uncovered it. Two small children clung to each other in a cage. "What are these?"

The scientist said, "Those are examples. We randomly sample the sperm and ova to make sure that the cryogenic storage is working properly. These are nothing important."

Alex couldn't help it. His hand closed on the bastard's throat. He shoved the choking man away in the direction of one of the mercenaries, bidding, "Put this scumbag with the others."

Kneeling in front of the cage, Alex reached in his pocket for a small tin of candy that he'd shoved in it earlier. He opened the cage door and the children made terrified sounds. They were both boys. No older than one or two. Alex smiled at them and said, "Not going to hurt you. Look. Something good."

Avoiding attempts to bite and kick him, Alex tried to extract one child. They both dragged out as if one entity. No one had bothered to diaper them. The cage was lined with litter as if these were small apes not children. Alex popped a candy in one mouth quickly. A smile bloomed on the cherubic face. Alex treated the other child in like fashion.

One child was honey blond and the other had black hair. They both had hazel eyes, wide spaced and innocent. Alex couldn't resist running a finger across the downy brows. He embraced them, burying his face in the tangled ringlets. "I'm so sorry, babies." He said.

MacDonald approached him and said, "Found another kid on an autopsy table. Pretty gross even for me. What you gonna do with those two?"

Standing, Alex was surprised to find the children clinging to his legs. He said, "Find them a mommy and daddy. Someone who wants both. The little things look as if they've only had each other to love. They shouldn't be separated."

The night after the raid was hellish. Spender hadn't thought of the ultimate torture...a night spent with two eighteen month olds. It amazed Alex that they cold get into so many things between eating and pooping. The playpen he'd had delivered hardly held them. He'd decided to call them Frank and Jessie for now. With their aptitude for escape and propensity for grabbing other people's things, the little monsters might have some of his genes or be lineal descendants of the James brothers.

Two hours later than he was supposed to arrive, Father Kolchev arrived. His massive hairy body filled the doorway to the point that he had to bow to enter. His beard was a splendid Old Testament flourish down his massive chest. Brown slanted eyes twinkled from deep hollows; smile lines radiated in every direction. Each eyebrow might have been a toupee for a lesser man. He was homely in that distinctive Russian way that was almost as oddly charming as a medieval gargoyle carving. 

Alex growled, "Sure that you couldn't have been later?"

Father Kolchev and he had met again over another penance, the care of Dmitri, the Russian boy he'd infected with the black oil. He'd found the teenager huddled in the woods with a few other survivors after the attack on the bridge that nearly killed Scully. Not knowing what else to do, Alex had brought the child to the boy's home where Spender had found him. It wasn't their fault that the good foster home had proven to be a consortium front. Kolchev had been kind and he spoke Russian...had taught Alex enough to give a foundation to college classes. He would reassure Dmitri whose mind was shattered by his experiences and would assure that the teenager was either repatriated if he had any relatives or was well cared for in the home.

Kolchev knelt to examine the boys, both of whom now huddled behind Alex's legs, nearly knocking him off balance. "Well, well, handsome lads...and they have taken to you."

Alex resisted the urge to kick the one that was drooling so profusely down his leg. He said, "Yeah, but I have things to do. Listen, as usual, don't ask questions. These kids are test-tube babies. No parents and they need some. As far as I can tell, they're normal kids...unless the ability to poop and pee several times in one night is abnormal. Can you find them a home? Together? I'll send legal papers showing them as foundlings."

The priest knelt and produced bright stuffed toys. He played with them for some time before Jesse, the blond and bolder of the two, grabbed for one of the purple and pink striped elephants. Frank darted forward and took the one Jesse had captured. A brief tug of war and then Jesse, somewhat tearfully, accepted the other toy from Father Kolchev.

Fifteen minutes later, the children drooled in a double stroller, ready to start on their new life. Alex felt a lump in his throat and said, "Be very careful, won't you? Let me check out the family you pick my way?"

Father Kolchev reached for him, crushing him in his bear-like grip. "I will. I never want to make the same mistake I made with you. Alexi? Is it any better?"

"Yeah, the old man died." Alex replied. "And I've got someone waiting for me."

"A male someone?" the Father asked.

Shrugging, Alex said, "Yes, I'm sorry I can't be what you want me to be."

Kissing his cheek, Father Kolchev said, "Yes, you can. Be happy. As long as it's someone who cares for you and respects you, Alexi."

"He does." Alex said, "See you later. I'll want to check on these little guys."

***

There was pleasure in his Shiva trail through the remaining consortium laboratories, subsidiaries, and offices. But taking out the roaches didn't help find Mulder. Alex was damn sure that none of the people that he had interrogated held back anything. There was a time when he wouldn't have used the methods that he did, but he was ruthless now, or at least against these men who truly were the enemies of humanity.

Finally, Alex had traced the last scurrying quisling to his or her lair. Revenge had lost its sweetness for lack of answers. The last lackey had only said something about Gibson Praise...the aliens and everyone else were after the other hybrid, but that asshole, Skinner, and that bitch, Scully, had gotten in the way. "Hope the bald prick stays blind" were the last words the man said.

Alex headed home. The word had a meaning now. Home was where Walter was. The place that someday Mulder also hopefully would find -- a better place than the stars or the grave he always seemed to be seeking. Alex looked once up at the remorseless skies. They seemed dark and cold...a trap as deep and devastating as the bottom of that silo.

***

Seeing nothing, his company for the moment, only the ceaseless burning in his eyes, Walter reviewed in his mind the steps that had led to this. The decision to ignore Kersch and use Mulder's resources to track the UFOs. Realizing that Gibson Praise, the long missing chess protegee and alleged mutant, was the next target. The confusing events that followed included the appearance of a shape shifter, another barrier shattered as Walter realized that every crazy idea he had denied after reading them in Mulder's uncensored reports was true.

He'd saved the boy. Walter could hug that to himself. Scully was all right too. He'd seen her once since he'd been here, wheeled in from her own hospital room. She hadn't had the brunt of the exposure to the fumes that emerged from a wounded shape-shifter. Something unknown had intervened and protected her. His eyes, if he did not regain his sight, were perhaps the price he had to pay for doing it right.

Yet Walter felt so alone. Even more alone than he had felt while waiting to be shipped stateside after being severely wounded in 'nam. Walter forced his hand away from the bandages. It itched under there when it did not burn. They said that the corneas weren't injured. It was all surface damage and there was hope for him. Walter smiled wryly as he recalled the confused efforts to identify the corrosive substance that had maimed him. 

"What on Earth is that?" One doctor had asked. 

Feeling like Mulder, Walter kept quiet. He had no desire to experience from the inside the locked ward in which he'd visited Mulder. 

His thoughts were with his lovers, both of them. This time he refused to doubt Alex. His prodigal would be back...

Walter rang the call bell. He hated to ask for pain medication, but if he didn't have some relief from this, he'd be tearing the bandages off soon and clawing at his eyes.

"I'll have to ask the doctor." The voice said. It was a new one. The idiot could just check his chart to find out that he had skipped his last dosage, wanting a clear head if Scully came to visit or Agent Doggett showed up with more abysmal questions.

The nurse came back and said, "You should have told me that you were two hours late from your last medication."

Right. God give me the patience, Walter thought, at least, while she had control of the bedpan...

The nurse left, but someone new entered in the room. Walter sensed who it was. There was a familiar combination of movements and the air seemed to heat and light with excitement. He reached out his hands. "Alex."

"Hurts to see you like this." The husky voice answered.

Walter laughed and said, "Hurts more to be like this. Come here."

Alex's weight settled on the bed. Walter reached up, indulging his touch with the sharp planes of Alex's face. Alex briefly turned his palm upward and kissed it before settling it back on his face. Walter found the crease of Alex's nose. He traced it then went downward to finger paint the curve of the lips. "Kiss me."

Mouth yielding, possessing at the same time. The taste of him...the brush of shaven cheeks and silken skin. "God, I missed you. Where have you been?"

"I've been ten thousand miles in the mouth of a grave yard." A soft laugh punctuated his comment. "Just about anyway. I screwed up, Walter. I shouldn't have killed Spender. I can't fucking find Mulder. What remains of the consortium has gone deep under or is so isolated that no one knows what the hell the plan is now. I've had to place all my hope in the alien rebels, but..." A few years ago the harshness in Alex's voice would have turned to tears. Now, he wouldn't let himself grieve.

Alex's hand crept under the blanket. It lay imploring over Walter's heart. "Get in here with me for a moment." He bade.

It felt warm for the first time since they had been together last. Alex laid his head against Walter's chest. Walter's hand brushed his hair...almost nothingness it was so soft. Again and again until Alex's breathing deepened. Walter meant to stay awake. Had no intention of leaving them both vulnerable but he was tired. His lungs were still recovering from the injury dealt from trying to stop the bounty hunter. 

Commotion signaled disaster. Walter flailed as he heard a crisp voice order, "Move away from him."

Instinct made him restrain Alex. Saving them from each other. Blind, caught between Mulder's two truths, Walter still commanded. "Put down the gun, Agent Scully. You obviously don't understand." He hardly needed to hear the click of the gun to know that she was armed. Scully no longer went anywhere unarmed. Her bullets were exploding shots, well able to blast a hole the size of her small fist in a shape changer's neck.

Dana's voice threaded high with disbelief. She asked, "What is there to understand? He betrayed Mulder. If I didn't think he could lead us to him, I'd have shot him where he lay. He's probably planning to kill you, Skinner."

"In my arms," replied Walter. "In my bed. Next to my heart. Does that strike you as an efficient means of assassination?"

There was a long silence. Walter's hand held Alex's. Scully had missed the weapon drawn beneath the covers. Scully's breathing gradually grew more erratic. Walter heard the gun slide into a holster. She said, "Walter, make him tell you where Mulder is."

Alex replied, "I don't know, Scully. Don't you think that I've looked?"

"You're on the inside." Scully argued. She was coming closer. "You have to know."

"It's all gone", Alex said, "Shattered into fragments, pathetic little pawns scared to death now that they don't have the old men to do their thinking for them." 

An uplift of one winged eyebrow challenged Scully.

"What about the aliens? Mulder thought you worked for some group of them." Scully stood near enough for Walter to smell the perfume in her hair and hospital antiseptic on her hands.

Weight redistributed. Walter felt Alex sheath his gun and decided he could breath again. Alex said, "Yeah, that's true. But they get a hold of me, not the other way around."

"What do we do then?" Scully asked. 

"We wait. And I'm going to take care of Walter until his eyes get better." Alex replied.

Walter found Alex's hand and held onto it. Scully's expelled a hiss of air. She said, "Wait? Do you have any idea of what he might be going through?"

Laughter met that question. Alex responded, "I think I know. Not much they didn't do to me. I was a naughty boy as a teenager, Scully. They took discipline seriously in the consortium. Spender loaned me for tests when I was young and ran away. I was relieved when he came to take me back. Anything seemed better than those places."

Somehow, they'd never got around to discussing exactly how and why Alex came into Spender's grip. Walter had imagined it was the same way he had been trapped, extortion for a moment of weakness. It sounded as if he had been wrong. Alex had been taken as a child or perhaps raised deliberately for use. Walter squeezed his hand a little harder.

"Spring me from this place, Scully. They said that I could go home if I had someone to take care of me." Walter said. 

"Him?" Scully said. He didn't need to see her face to know she was frowning.

Walter said, "Yes."

"It's that easy for you? Just forget everything he did? He's fooled you before and went right back to Spender." Scully said.

Alex coldly responded, "I didn't go back. I was traded, Scully. They asked me to turn myself over to him so the old man would give you back. I was stupid enough to do it because I was so damned afraid of losing their love that I didn't know to save my own skin."

"No." Scully said, "Walter and Mulder wouldn't have done that. It didn't happen."

Grateful for the bandages that hid most of his face, Walter said, "We did it. He had a sensor in his belly, but it didn't help. We sold him out for you, Scully. He was Spender's little joke. Programmed and brain washed. Spender even sent me the tapes of it. Thought they would amuse me after I was infected."

"Oh"...Alex exclaimed softly. "That's why..."

"I forgave you? Maybe." Walter admitted. "I might just have been tired of pretending I didn't need you."

Scully hadn't said anything. Her silence wasn't like her. She was as quick as Mulder about expressing her opinion. 

Walter said, "I'll show you the tape if that's what it'll take to persuade you. Spender had a great time telling Alex over and over how we betrayed him."

Her voice sounded flat, dead, crushed. Scully said, "I can't believe you did that. I'm ashamed. To send even an enemy back if you know it's to be tortured...but your lover. You traded him when you said that you both loved him."

The sound of her footsteps announced that the conversation was ended. The door slammed. Alex observed, "I didn't expect you to tell her."

"Part of my penance." Walter replied. "Get me out of here."

***

One was a lousy patient, but that was okay because the other was a poor nurse. 

Patience had never been Alex's strength. It wasn't that he didn't like to help Walter as much as the man would let him. His lover enjoyed help in the shower, but if you let him alone for a moment, he was trying to do things that he hadn't the eyesight or the strength to complete such as making soup. Walter didn't even think about using the microwave; he had to try the stove, turning the dial high and then wandering off until the smoke alarms announced the near disaster. He'd set a potholder down and turned the wrong burner on. So Alex yelled. Walter shouted back and both sulked until they found common ground in bed. Walter didn't need his eyesight for that. His touch was the more exquisite for the dark.

Lying still in the darkness of the designated safe zone of the big bed, Alex lay sprawled as Walter's mouth mapped his topography, found each scar and brushed his lips across it and if that couldn't heal the flesh, it did wonders for Alex's soul. Walter found the sensitive places that made it hard to endure without begging for more. Finally, Walter's mouth rested on the pulse at the base of Alex's throat. Hot breath warmed the soft flesh. 

"God. God." Walter said. "I want you."

Laughing, Alex huskily replied, "I think you pretty well had me."

Alex's hand stroked the smooth flesh over Walter's head. Usually his lover would have stopped that. His bald spot didn't precisely embarrass him, but he preferred that his lovers ignore it. Arching up, Alex kissed the naked flesh. He stroked his cheek down, shivered at the rough feel of the bandage. It still frightened him although he knew that Walter's eyes would heal. He'd seen enough tests to know that.

This wasn't exactly the way he imagined it although it was good. Alex snuggled his face into the crook of Walter's neck. It seemed wrong to be alone in this. Mulder's face should parallel his so they could argue whether his nose was encroaching on Alex's side of their lover. Mulder would never concede, of course, so Alex used to nibble on Mulder's nose, a silly, sweet perversion that always sent Mulder helpless with laughter.

The rumbling of Walter's stomach woke Alex some time later. He'd have to get up and make dinner. Alex gradually extricated himself from under Walter's arm and made his way into the bathroom for a quick shower. He wasn't much of a cook, but Walter wasn't fussy. A small steak, a green salad, and a baked potato would be a treat for his lover. Alex smiled to himself. Spender would have laughed himself sick at the sight of a domestic Krycek, but hell, it seemed good to him. Throw in Mulder and Alex would have been glad to play househusband. Well, maybe not, he'd never had thought much past the point where they would be back together. He had clung to his faith that somehow that would happen. He had Walter back and he'd fight heaven or hell to get Mulder as well.

***

A week passed. Bandages came off. Walter still was barred from work, but that left more time to spend with the Gunmen, hearing reports of UFOs, bee attacks, and unexplained happenings, processing them through his trained mind to look for an elusive pattern. It might be thin hope, but it was still better than despair. Scully spent less time at work. She was uncomfortable around Alex, but at least, they hadn't argued outright since the hospital. It was like trying to introduce a new cat into a household, something Sharon had once tried. Weeks of feline glares and tails twitching...at least, Scully and Alex had resisted pissing in corners to demonstrate their territory so far.

Driving back, Scully was grim faced. She didn't seem in the mood for conversation so Walter sat in the back seat with Alex. He'd noticed Alex rubbing his arm. For the most part, his lover refused to discuss the amputation, acted as if nothing was wrong. Walter guessed that it hurt sometimes though. He'd notice that Alex removed the prosthesis as soon as they arrived home and on occasions, his lover belted down a whiskey as if it was medication not recreation. Walter said, "Alex, you look tired. Why don't you lean on me? Rest."

Proving that she wasn't oblivious, Scully said, "I have a friend who uses biofeedback. You might find that useful, Alex. It won't take the edge off as a medication would."

His eyes shutting, Alex took a deep breath. He said, "Yeah, that might be good."

"I'll give her a call." Scully said. A few minutes more. Alex was half asleep as Walter massaged his shoulder, neck, and back.

"What did he tell you about my pregnancy?" Scully asked.

"Spender?" Alex asked. At least, he wasn't in the mood for any of his former games or possibly that behavior had everything to do with the personality that Spender had constructed for Alex after breaking him and nothing to do with the core personality. Alex said, "When I searched his office, I found certain gaps. He'd always kept some files off the computer. I saw them sometimes when I was being disciplined. He'd keep me with him, naked, collared, prostrate on the floor. I wasn't supposed to look up, but I did anyway. I saw files with your name on them, Scully. There were also some with Mulder's name and mine."

Scully pulled over suddenly at a gas station. She made a run for the bathroom. Alex asked, "Walter, you want to go after her?"

Walter had made that mistake once. Scully was not in the mood for comfort with this "morning sickness". She'd reamed him royally on the one occasion he'd tried it. Alex went in for soda pops, filled the tank, and washed the windows. She showed up as he tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. Scully briefly looked at him and said "Move over. I'm driving."

Opening his mouth to argue, Alex studied Scully's face and obeyed without a word. She said, "Did you find anything?"

Alex replied, "He'd been burning things. I asked the nurse. She said that he'd destroyed a lot of things. He told her it was his personal records."

"What do you think, Krycek?" Scully asked.

Surprisingly, Alex reached across his own body to pat her arm. "I don't know. I'm sorry. Spender was obsessed with you and Mulder as much as he was with me and to a lesser degree with Walter. He could have had something to do with it, but maybe not. And even if he did cause this to happen, maybe it was a gift. He liked you as much as he liked anyone."

Scully said, "That's small comfort."

"You want me to lie to you?" Alex asked.

"No." Scully answered.

***

A few days later, Walter returned to work. Coming home, Alex was gone. He had left a note. "Looking for information. I've been contacted..."

Alex was gone several weeks. Walter worried. He had never felt so alone. Scully was driven. Pursuing X Files with a vengeance and scrabbling for clues that never seemed to lead anyplace. Doggett seemed determined to be helpful. He was in his way...a draft horse trying to run in a thoroughbred's silks. Of course, his opinion remained that Mulder was hiding. His disbelief reminded Walter of his own refusal to accept what Mulder presented to him. Well, it was more peaceful that way. The man could have his peaceful state of denial for as long as the aliens let him...

***

Looking up at the night sky, Alex asked, "Did I find you beautiful at one time? Now, all I see is the threat of what you bring."

It was cold. The night air held pinpoints of freezing that bit into his face. Alex found himself on the outside looking in at Walter's apartment again as he had so many years ago. He wondered if anything would have changed if he had resisted the temptation to see them? He'd been weak. As much a child in some ways as the fifteen-year-old boy that Spender had directed one of his lackey families to take from the boy's home. Now, he was stronger. And he had to be stronger yet. 

The bag in his hand held a treasure. A perfected vaccine. He was eager to inject some into Walter before turning the rest over to Scully. He had a pharmaceutical factory set up to make it and distribute it as a flu vaccine. There would be hold outs, but it was a start. If he weren't feeling so sick from the rest of the alien rebel's gifts, he would have sung from pure joy. This was it. The reason for half his suffering and misdeeds...the thing for which he had traded his left arm and years of his life.

Staggering a little from the fever, Alex used his key card to access the security entrance. Imagine that, a key and everything. Leaning against the wall, Alex punched the button for Walter's floor. The elevator motion made him ill. He groaned and held back just barely from throwing up. He couldn't find the other key, fumbling madly at his pockets until Walter suddenly opened the door. 

Safe harbor, Alex grinned stupidly and said, "The rat came back the very next day because it couldn't stay away. I do love you, Walter Skinner..."

At which point it all went black...

***

As unexpectedly as he had left, Alex came back, returning burning with fever and raving. Keeping his lover out of the hospital seemed less important than saving his life. They didn't know what was wrong. All that technology...the science that could clone and transplant. They couldn't even bring down his fever. Walter didn't remember calling Scully but suddenly she was there, holding his hand in a tight knuckled grip. 

Feeling like a dumb, suffering animal, Walter sat on the vinyl-covered couch and crushed Alex's jacket in his hands. He stared at his battle-scarred knuckles, at his polished shoes planted on the pale blue tile...he felt as if he didn't fit in his skin anymore. His grief seemed to strain outward, a swelling slow agony of fear and loss.

Hearing Alex scream, a harsh sound ripping from the treatment room, he couldn't stand it anymore. Walter rose, with Scully clinging to him like a persistent terrier, and made his way toward his suffering lover. 

Alex still looked beautiful. Sweat anointed him, setting his hair into a velvet nap. Fevered eyes were bright beacons. Walter knelt at his lover's bedside, holding Alex's hand. "You stay with me."

Eyes opened, but apparently did not see him. "Hot." Alex said in a dreary voice. "Please, no more." He groaned. "I said you could do it. Not your friends. Don't make me...kill you. I'll kill you."

"Take me home." Alex begged, grabbing Walter's hand.

"I will soon. When you're better." Walter promised, ignoring the doctor who tried to usher him out. 

"You're not real." Alex accused. "Fucking hallucinations. Walter hates me. He hates me."

"No, I love you." Walter assured, never minding the look on the doctor's face. "I'm going to take care of you, but first you have to get well."

There was a spark of comprehension in Alex's eyes. His eyes drew Walter's. It felt like falling, but fearlessly, knowing that their love gave them wings. "Walter?"

"I'm here. What did they do to you?" Walter demanded.

"Antibodies. I'm going fix them. Fix them good. Just have to live long enough." Alex stirred, arching with fever. His eyelids fluttered and he jerked from head to foot, his body supported only from those points as the rest hung, suspended in an agonized snap of muscle and bone.

Staff moved Walter out of the treatment room as he froze in shock. Scully said, "Let them work, Walter. They can reduce the symptoms while they look for a cause."

"Will you work on it? Get the lab on it? Perhaps it's something you ran into before on the X Files." Walter asked. His place was here. He wouldn't leave the lover that remained.

***

A sunny bedroom greeted Alex when he woke. It wasn't Walter's. Finally, he remembered. Yes, this was the house by the apple orchard. The room smelled like sunshine and lemons. The coverlet was white eyelet lace covered. Plump pillows propped his head. His body felt clean. Alex remembered leaving the hospital at last.

All he had to do was walk to the car. Scully, his unlikely angel of mercy, was at his side again. She held a bag of prescriptions and bore a resigned expression. Walter lifted him out of the chair and slid him into the back seat before climbing in beside him. Strong arms embraced him. Alex had lowered his head to his lover's shoulder. Soon, motion, and the comforting, familiar feel and scents lulled him to sleep.

All he had to do was stir and Walter was there. Alex blinked up at his lover and smiled. Wordlessly, he drew the man down until Walter opened the covers to snuggle him close. Feeling weak and drowsy, but infinitely better than he had, Alex closed his eyes. For as long as the rebels would let him, he would rest and enjoy the treasured moments of care.

***

The mound of printouts all hit the floor. Scully said, "What ever caused that fever, it had odd characteristics. Some of the chemical signatures resemble the Black Oil."

"He said he was infected by it." Walter answered. He was downstairs because Alex had asked to be left alone. He had tried not to have hurt feelings about that. They had seldom been apart for more than five minutes since coming here. He supposed it was natural for Alex to want some solitude. 

A desultory motion of Scully's foot stirred the papers. "Mulder thought so. He mentioned it after that mess in Hong Kong. He was sure that Krycek was in an abandoned silo in North Dakota. He wanted to go back, but Spender had us removed."

It made Walter shudder to think of Alex trapped in his own body with some kind of alien creature and later to be buried alive. He wondered if it was love or hate that fueled Alex's fight for survival?

"All this information and it's useless." Scully complained. "He still has something in his blood. Like a virus but not one we can detect even with the best microscopes in our possession. The only way we can tell something is there is by the chemical changes in his blood. Walter, I hope that you are being very careful when you..." She winced as she failed to complete her sentence.

"Make love to him?" Walter asked. He chuckled softly and said, "I'm not going to pretend that I'm sleeping with him because one of us misplaced his teddy bear, Dana. But I'm careful."

"You shouldn't be kissing him." Scully chided.

"If I get sick, I get sick. If Alex was your lover, would you be able to resist kissing that mouth?" Walter commented. 

Standing up, Scully scooped up the fallen papers. The brief act of untidy rebellion had yielded to her precise nature. She said, "I'm not going to answer that..."

"On the grounds that it may incriminate you?" Walter teased.

Dana shot him a wry smile before exiting toward the stairs and her bedroom.

Walter stayed down a bit longer, staring into the murmuring fireplace. It was good to be here, to find as much peace as any of them could find with Mulder missing. Finally, he banked the fire and took the stair two at a time. With Alex waiting for him, he felt like a young buck in the spring.

Sleep vanishing from Alex's eyes, the green orbs lit with moonlight. He uncovered himself, posing as seductively as some cup-bearing Ganymede in a Pompeii bathhouse scene. "Make love to me?" He invited.

"Damn right!" Walter growled. He stood in the circle of moonlight to remove his battered-to-comfort sweatshirt and pants. The frayed rope that was supposed to hold the bottoms up was lost in the tunnel of fabric. The material curled over exposing his flat belly with its salt and pepper fur. Alex was watching, eyes intent on the revealing flesh. Walter would have said that nothing in the world could have persuaded him that he was a handsome man, but when he saw himself reflected through Alex's eyes, he felt almost beautiful.

Sitting on the bed, Walter started with one slim, but far from tiny foot. He stroked the high instep, admired the mother of pearl nails, set in toes more elegant than someone else's fingers. He traced a path up the trim ankle to the knob of knee and then to the masterwork of Alex's thighs. He laid his palms on either side of the inside of the strong legs, parting them further. Alex's head fell back as Walter reached reluctantly for a condom. 

Teasing Alex's solid, perfectly shaped cock into plump, heated readiness, Walter eased the condom onto the flesh of it. To bow in worship over his lover was passion, completion, and joy. He had relearned all the ways to touch Alex, to torment him to the point where his need crashed down all the boundaries. Walter didn't need to fuck Alex to know what it felt like to have him completely. Here, in this act, they were equals and any remaining secrets were unimportant. Here, their communication was ideal and glorious.

Walter wet his fingers to slip them inside his lover. The thrust of them stroked incandescent heat from Alex. He had him speaking in tongues, a tower of Babel in one angelic body. The orgasm, when it happened, was bone jarring. 

In a moment, Walter moved over Alex, guided the remaining hand to his own need and took his love's mouth as if it were his oxygen. He fancied himself like a daring pirate taking a treasure ship. Alex was all he needed. All he wanted. These moments with Alex made the rest of his life pale in comparison. All the houris in paradise could not have given him more than his lover's hand on him and the union of their mouths.

There was peace afterwards and warmth as they pressed together, connecting from their toes to their mouths, perfectly fitted to one another. Walter only staggered up to attend to a perfunctory clean-up before their bodies curved together in a familiar spoon. For one moment, Walter's hand reached farther than Alex's back, seeking fine, soft hair and a mouth made to smile and tease. Empty, it fell back. Not so complete after all. Not until Mulder was returned.

Waking, he knew something was wrong before he even opened his eyes. It was not only that Alex had left the bed, but also every hair on Walter's arm stood up in atavistic horror. Alex was not in the bathroom. Walter pulled on the same threadbare sweats and hurried downstairs. He heard voices coming from the porch. 

The creatures were almost Halloween laughable. Large pale faced men with eyes, lips, nose sealed to puckered scarred lines. How the hell did they eat and breathe? Or perhaps they didn't need either food or air. Alex seemed to be communicating with the one member of the group that maintained a human visage. He was a strongly built man with a massive jaw, a broad forehead and blue-gray eyes. His blond hair wore a crewcut, emphasizing the thick rounded skull.

Fully dressed, Alex looked ready to leave. A pouch that Walter didn't recognize was slung across his shoulder. He was clad in black leather, a long sleeved tee shirt and jeans, looking sleek and predatory, the protective coloration of his suits abandoned now.

"They found Mulder." Alex announced. "They'll take me to him."

"Just a minute. Let me wake Scully and we'll go with you." Walter replied.

"No." Alex said, "Just me. There's nothing the two of you can do. Mulder and I have one last job to do and we're the only ones capable of doing it." 

"I can't let you do this." Walter cried.

A Mona Lisa smile crossed Alex's face, his expression settling to its enigmatic best. "You can't stop me. I don't belong to you, Walter. No one's ever going to own me again or tell me what to do. The aliens want me for the same reason they wanted Mulder. Because I've been exposed. We're fucking antibodies, Mulder and I. The Englishman's last laugh on them all. The first drop of blood that Mulder sheds, once it's combined with mine, is the beginning of the end. The joke is that they snatched him up just like they'll grab me when they sense all the changes going on inside of me. Can't let such good juicy bait get away, can they? Yeah, Walter, I did set Mulder up. I didn't know it at the time, but if they'd told me, I'd have done it anyway. No worse than what happened to me, and for a greater cause."

 Walter wanted to force the issue, but he saw it in Alex's eyes. His lover wasn't his boy anymore. He said, "Then let me come with you. Let me help."

Those beautiful black lashes fell, covering the green eyes. "You can't. Stay out of it, Walter. If you love me, stay safe."

Let Alex take his silence as agreement. Walter stepped forward, cupped Alex's face in his hands and brushed those beloved lips softly. Not enough. So beautiful. Never more beautiful as he prepared to sacrifice himself for the humanity that had tossed him into the trash, tortured him, labeled him a traitor. Walter took a deeper kiss and whispered, "If you don't make it out of there alive, I swear I'll follow you to hell and bring you back."

Alex drew back. He patted Walter's cheek. "Been there. I'll get back. Remember what they say about rats and cockroaches. Hard to kill."

The ground held Walter's gaze. He stared at the winter earth, so hard and cold. He couldn't bear to see Alex walk away again.

***

The last mile needed to be walked alone. The rebels left him near the site. A cluster of abduction victims had settled in the North Dakota badlands. The aliens could not leave them as living evidence. Alex walked in and warned them, giving them more choice than he had. Some left. Others had the courage to volunteer, willing to be bait along side Alex.

A wash of light...like everybody else, Alex had seen "Close Encounters". This wasn't much of a light show. Just weary and scarred humans responding to a hypnotic compulsion, stepping into a beam as prosaic by now as any human elevator. 

The small ship held them like a truck full of cattle for the slaughter. Alex made no promises. He held himself aloof and apart, preparing himself to see Mulder, to release the plague, and hopefully to live through the experience.

North Dakota this time. The bleak prairie was a kind of hard frozen desert. The military bases would have been a drawback if the military had not been informed that the unusual readings were classified experiments. The aliens off-loaded them with impersonal brutality.

Scanned and decoded, they were herded through corridors of gleaming and pulsating lights. It was terror to be here. Where once an alien rode inside of him, now one had swallowed him. The dank air stank of alien fluids. Strange gurgles and hollow echoing sounds erupted at intervals. As they were marched deeper, Alex heard screams, groans, and, finally as doors slithered open to reveal identical openings like gashes in the tissues of the ship, Mulder's voice.

The light dimmed as the door shut. Alex uttered a cry of terror and clutched his wounded arm with the good one. He wanted to huddle in a corner, curled in a fetal knot of rejection. 

A voice cut through his maddening fear. "Alex, did I hear you? Krycek?"

"Yeah, it's me, Mulder." Alex answered, going to the small window in along one wall. The rest of it was featureless as the other walls.

"Did they take you too or are you here to gloat?" Mulder asked.

"Yeah, right. I'd risk coming aboard this fucking ship just to torture you. Have I told you lately that you're an ass hole?" Alex said. He reached toward the mass of scar tissue on his arm, finding the smooth cold patch amid the rougher heat of the stump. Wincing, he dragged the tag of material back, fumbling for the instrument concealed beneath it. 

After a moment, Mulder's voice sounding wistful remarked, "You used to like my ass hole."

"Still think it's cute." Alex grunted as he found the trinket that the rebel claimed would get him out of the cell. "But not when you do your thinking with it."

Damn, the thing worked. Alex stood back as the opening reappeared. This time he thought the sound was more like the paper-like rustling of cockroaches moving in the dark.

"Mulder?" Alex asked as he ran the pulsating prism like instrument along the wall beneath the windows. The prisoners spilled out behind him. For the first time a rat was the one leading the pipers. 

And Mulder. "You look like shit, Mulder." Alex remarked, perusing the pale face, taking in the hair that stuck in clumps for all the world like a mouse's fur after you'd saved it from a cat. Mulder's naked skin seemed to hang over a lattice of bones with no meat to pad between.

"And you look like an angel." Mulder said, struggling to get to his feet. 

Kneeling, Alex raised his former lover. Mulder put his arms around Alex's neck and his dry lips met Alex's. "I haven't touched anyone for months. I've been alone with no one but them." The kiss deepened. Mulder moved his hands to brace Alex's face, his mouth desperately connecting. Alex could feel hot tears running down Mulder's face.

He never could resist Mulder's tears. Alex held him with his one arm, rocking his former lover as they stood. They were naked and human. To the aliens, they were nothing more than specimens, but to each other, the world.

"You didn't come here just to die with me?" Mulder asked.

"No," Alex said. "Came to get you out. Scully and Skinner miss you. Got to keep the peanut gallery happy."

Alex turned the shining crystal until he saw the sharp edge. "Mulder, there's something else. I've been working for some people, not the Smoker. That was just the cover. These...people are not exactly human."

Mulder's breath was warm against his shoulder. His chin dug into the tender flesh of between Alex's collarbone and neck. Alex shivered as Mulder's tongue flicked out to taste him. "Yeah? Not human, but not like these creatures?"

"Exactly. They are old hosts, people who lost their world to the Oiliens and the Grays a long time ago. They've been slaves for a thousand years. All that time they've waited and hoped, looking for a world that would support their form of life. When they were brought to earth, they knew it was time to rebel." Alex explained.

"Not too successfully." Mulder remarked.

That was true. Alex tried not to resent Mulder saying it. "Yeah, but they have a weapon now. A biological weapon."

Nuzzling him, Mulder said, "Unless you have it up your ass, you don't have it on you. You want me to look?"

"Knock it off, Mulder. I do have the weapon. It's not on me. It's in me and in you. It's like a joke. I cut you. You cut me. And we bleed their death right out of our veins." Alex said.

"Right." Mulder said, his voice holding that sardonic edge it always had when he wasn't yelling at Alex or sweet voiced with love for him. "Believe me, Alex. I've bled. It didn't do anything to them."

The eerie light fluctuated again. Alex knew it was time to stop playing. "We're deadly only in combination, just the right formula of different exposures and vaccines. And they swallowed us both up like candy coated roach pellets."

Holding up the razor like edge of the tool, Alex let it drop into Mulder's hand. "Trust me this one time?"

Mulder looked deep into Alex's eyes. "What do I have to lose?"

"Cut me deep as you always do." Alex said, extending his hand palm upward.

Mulder kissed the palm that Alex held out before incising the beloved flesh. He quickly did the same to his own before pressing his bleeding flesh to Alex's. 

Fire sprang between them as their blood touched the crystal. It became a blinding light, a Glory Hand to lead them out of this place. As they walked, leading the other survivors, the ship moaned beneath them. It pitched and quivered beneath their feet, dying, poisoned by their blood. 

At first, the fearsome light kept the aliens back. They were unable to enter the circle of white cast from the joined hands. Those nearest them flailed their arms and screamed, a high resonating sound more like the cry of malfunctioning machines than anything made of flesh. Yet as more and more of the aliens crowded the corridor, the ones in front died but could not fall, so tightly packed were the creatures. Step by step, Alex and Mulder were forced back away from the door of the ship.

Alex said, "Not going to make it, Mulder. Suits you. I know you always wanted to be a martyr. Me, I just wanted to be free, to have a safe place and for someone to love me." 

Turning to him tenderly, Mulder kissed Alex and said, "You have someone who loves you."

The banshee dissonance increased. Magically, the lemming drive forward slowed then stopped. Alex could see flashes of light behind the massed aliens. He could smell sizzling flesh...an odd horrid odor as if an oil spill had ignited in the ocean. Seeing an opening in the packed aliens, Alex gasped, "Everyone stay tight. Something's happening and I think I see a way through them."

An alien in flames staggered through his mobbed brethren. Two more careened forward and through this gap in the mass, Alex saw two armored figures wielding the flame thrower like devices he'd seen used by the rebels, but he had never seen them use any type of protection for themselves.

The smaller Yoda like figure uttered a shrill cry as she whirled to kill a predatory gray alien. Alex recognized the voice at the same time as Mulder did. "Scully? Scully!"

Alex held tight to his lover's hand. He said, "Later, Mulder. Don't break our arc now." 

Sparing him a smile, Mulder said, "I have you. Don't worry."

The larger figure threw back his helmet visor to reveal Walter's sweating, battle furious face. 

"How the hell did you get here?" Alex gasped out.

Holding up both of his lovers as they made their way from the dying ship, Walter didn't take the time to answer. The ship was rumbling, preparing to leave its womb of soil. Scully covered their flight with steady blasts from the weapon that the rebels had provided. The spongy, faintly damp footing heaved constantly. Walter caught a glimpse of figures in front of them. He let go of Mulder and Alex to fire at them and then recognized his allies. The sewn shut faces still seemed welcoming, as they stood surrounded by the bodies of Gray Aliens, Oiliens, and hybrid forms.

Moving with swift unnatural grace, the rebels grabbed Mulder and Alex to hurry them off the ship. Two of the rebels moved forward to take defense, allowing Scully and Walter to escape with the other former captives. Mulder gasped as the light of the sun hit his face. 'Oh, God, I was afraid I would never see it again!"

Not giving Mulder long to marvel, the rebels literally threw them in a covered truck...not the ordinary military transport that it seemed. It moved like a rocket, jetting them across a wildly reeling terrain.

Miles away, the truck stopped. Despite his emaciated and ill appearance, Mulder insisted on getting out of the vehicle. The four of them watched the mother ship rise. It gleamed in the air with a deadly beauty like a shark in the ocean, a killing machine yet innocent of human motivations.

It rose higher, at first, taking the particular bobbing, darting flight pattern that was so often described in UFO literature. It was a shock when it plummeted down. Walter didn't need to see schematics to know that this wasn't a functioning craft. He saw smaller lights whirl away and couldn't understand why Alex was laughing.

Mulder also seemed confused. He said, "They're getting away."

"Infected..." Alex said. "Where ever they go, they'll be like Typhoid Mary. By the time the rest of them figure it out, it will be too late. No more guts and glory... funny thing is that one of the virus components is a mutated form of the AIDS virus. Hell, maybe someday, that stuff will be the cure for the real thing."

The leader of the aliens stepped forward. He said, "I have learned the concept of a fair trade, Alex Krycek. I have the energy to restore your arm or to destroy the mutated tissue that is killing Mulder."

There was no hesitation. Alex shoved Mulder forward and said, "Do it."

It was just a touch. The alien healer held Mulder firmly for a few moments before the man arched back, passing out. Scully and Alex each caught him by an arm before he hit the ground. "Wish bone?" Alex asked, eyebrows lifting in a teasing expression.

Scully astounded them all by kissing Alex right on the crease that gave a sweet imperfection to his very diminutive nose. She said, "How about we share, Alex?"

"I can do that." Alex replied. 

Turning to Walter, Alex said, "I thought I told you to stay out of it?"

"You think Scully and I want to be the only ones that obey orders?" Walter answered. He picked Mulder up with some token help from Scully and handed him to the waiting hands of the refuge abductees from the ship. 

"How'd you follow us?" Alex persisted, never one to accept anything without questioning.

"I persuaded your allies that I would expose them, their enemies, their allies, and the fate of the man in the moon if they didn't let us act as a recovery team. Scully coming along wasn't my idea, but she's hard to stop when Mulder's skin is involved." Walter explained.

Alex looked weary. He said, "I guess I'll forgive you since you saved our collective ass."

Amused, Walter said, "Get in the truck, Alex. Nothing to do now, but wait for the cover-up. This should be a good one."

***

"Meteorite Landing" landing in North Dakota" the headline proclaimed. Mulder balled up the front page and managed a basket with the crumpled paper. "Assholes." He commented. "I can't believe the media bought that."

Walter eyed the paper. He'd picked up a New York Times as well when he left the bed to get some coffee. It crowned a pile of jeans and sweatshirts mounded on the floor next to several large Walmart bags. His reaction was nearly the same as Mulder's.

Sleepy eyed still, Alex took advantage of his middle position in the bed to use both of his lovers as pillows, sprawled like a puppy between them. "They'll buy anything." Alex commented. "I don't care. What's important is that our plan worked."

"What now?" Walter asked.

"A little more business as usual. Clean up what's left of the conspiracy. Make sure that the aliens all die." Alex said with a casual wave of his hand. "There are a few wizened old bastards whose heads I want to see on poles." 

"What ever you want." Mulder replied. "It's your turn to lead, I guess."

An impatient jerk of the head punctuated Mulder's comment. "Christ, Mulder, it's not about who leads and follows. All I want is to go home."

"But I thought you would be staying with us? Scully said that she'd sell us the house by the orchard." Mulder whined.

Shaking his head, Alex fell back and said, "Yeah, exactly. Home. No more aliens or mysteries for me after this is wound up. Don't know what I want to do. Write computer programs maybe. I have some good ideas for games."

"You want to write computer games?" Mulder asked, choking back a chuckle.

"What's wrong with that?" Alex asked indignantly. "I'm as good a hacker as the Lone Gunmen. I can write programs and handle graphics. Maybe I'll do one based on you and Scully. She'd make a kick-ass heroine. What do you think of her in an Emma Peel leather cat suit? Scully can rescue Mulder from mazes and vampire bat women. I think it would sell."

Mulder had left an apple on the table. Walter took the opportunity to stuff it in his lover's opening mouth. Indignant hazel eyes glared at him then twinkled.

"Breakfast is in order, and then a rental car, as our allies appear to have had enough of us. Then, we invent another cover-up. A kidnapping. That shouldn't surprise anyone. Mulder is always being grabbed. Of course, I'll have to look like a fool for being taken in by the pyrotechnics of a crazed religious group, but it won't be the first time."

Walter contemplated the idea briefly. He patted Alex's knee and asked, "Unless you have a better idea?"

"I'll have a talk with Kersch." Alex said. "Don't worry. He'll survive it. I just don't want him raising your blood pressure, Walter. There's only one place where I like it raised very, very high."

Mulder tugged down the blanket, revealing Walter in his glory. "Don't mind me. It's breakfast time." 

Walter flipped Mulder on his back. "Not my turn."

Pouncing like a powerful cat, Walter captured and teased Mulder's cock with kisses as Alex slid into place behind their restored lover. Moving Mulder to his side, Alex's mouth trailed down the thin spine, parted the pale marble of the ass and delved inside. Mulder arched between them, gasping, clutching the bedding with white knuckled hands. He moaned in blissful surrender to them both. Each of them connected to the other, their bodies meshed until there was nothing but one being, a trinity of love and passion. Walter's hand helped to open Mulder, to ease Alex inside. Mulder's mouth found Walter's and buried its begging pleas in his kisses. His leg hooked across Walter's thighs, his pelvis thrusting in reflection of Alex's movements behind him. 

As each spun deliciously back to earth, the three of them collapsed toward each other - one flesh. Alex's fingers brushed Walter's chest. He kissed Mulder's neck as a hand came back to clutch him near. 

"I'm home. "Alex said. "Just where I want to be. And I'm never leaving again."

Walter drew both his lovers close. The three of them, sheltering each other from the hard rain. Home at last. 

The end

* * *

A HARD RAIN'S A-GONNA FALL   
      by Bob Dylan

Oh, where have you been, my blue-eyed son?   
Oh, where have you been, my darling young one?   
I've stumbled on the side of twelve misty mountains,   
I've walked and I've crawled on six crooked highways,   
I've stepped in the middle of seven sad forests,   
I've been out in front of a dozen dead oceans,   
I've been ten thousand miles in the mouth of a graveyard, 

And it's a hard, and it's a hard, it's a hard, and it's a hard,   
And it's a hard rain's a-gonna fall. 

Oh, what did you see, my blue-eyed son?   
Oh, what did you see, my darling young one?   
I saw a newborn baby with wild wolves all around it,   
I saw a highway of diamonds with nobody on it,   
I saw a black branch with blood that kept drippin',   
I saw a room full of men with their hammers a-bleedin',   
I saw a white ladder all covered with water,   
I saw ten thousand talkers, whose tongues were all broken,   
I saw guns and sharp swords in the hands of young children, 

And it's a hard, and it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard,   
And it's a hard rain's a-gonna fall. 

And what did you hear, my blue-eyed son?   
And what did you hear, my darling young one?   
I heard the sound of a thunder, it roared out a warnin',   
Heard the roar of a wave that could drown the whole world,   
Heard one hundred drummers whose hands were a-blazin',   
Heard ten thousand whisperin' and nobody listenin',   
Heard one person starve, I heard many people laughin',   
Heard the song of a poet who died in the gutter,   
Heard the sound of a clown who cried in the alley, 

And it's a hard, and it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard,   
And it's a hard rain's a-gonna fall. 

Oh, who did you meet, my blue-eyed son?   
Who did you meet, my darling young one?   
I met a young child beside a dead pony,  
I met a white man, who walked a black dog,   
I met a young woman, whose body was burning,   
I met a young girl; she gave me a rainbow,   
I met one man, who was wounded in love,   
I met another man, who was wounded with hatred, 

And it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard,   
It's a hard rain's a-gonna fall. 

Oh, what'll you do now, my blue-eyed son?   
Oh, what'll you do now, my darling young one?   
I'm a-goin' back out 'fore the rain starts a-fallin',   
I'll walk to the depths of the deepest black forest,   
Where the people are many and their hands are all empty,   
Where the pellets of poison are flooding their waters,   
Where the home in the valley meets the damp dirty prison,   
Where the executioner's face is always well hidden,   
Where hunger is ugly, where souls are forgotten,   
Where black is the color, where none is the number, 

And I'll tell it and think it and speak it and breathe it,   
And reflect it from the mountain so all souls can see it,   
Then I'll stand on the ocean until I start sinkin',   
But I'll know my song well before I start singin',   
And it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard,   
it's a hard rain's a-gonna fall.

 

* * *

 

Title: The Apple Orchard  
Author/pseudonym: Ursula  
Fandom: X Files  
Pairing: Mulder Skinner Krycek  
Rating: NC 17  
Status: not beta read. I know. Shoot me. But it's for his birthday and I just finished it.  
Archive: Anywhere, as a complete story. If you have a constructive critique and wish to use a portion, contact me directly.  
E-mail address for feedback: or   
Series/Sequel: Is this story part of a series: Scmoopy epilog to Hard Rain series.  
Other websites: My page at RATB, thanks to Ned & Leny: http://www.squidge.org/terma/ursula/ursula.htm  
Disclaimers: Carter invented them. I love them. Who wins?  
Notes: Schmoopy beyond all reason  
Time Frame: In my Hard Rain Universe  
Note: the stories were:  
    A Hard Rain's gonna fall  
    Where Have You Gone?  
    The Executioner's Song  
    Standing on the Ocean

The story begins after Alex was uncovered as a double agent. The three met again in a high-class whorehouse in Tacoma, Washington. Alex was sent to Thailand for safety but was kidnapped and sold twice as a slave. He was shot and abandoned as dead to be found by his lovers. He was taken to the apple orchard to be nursed back to health only to be traded for Scully. In the last episode, he helps to rescue Mulder and the lovers are reunited. Meanwhile, he has found two adorable children.

* * *

The Apple Orchard  
M/S/K  
by Ursula

Apple blossoms were falling as prettily as if the little world of the Apple Orchard was enclosed in a glass globe. Inside the old two-story house, hell was raising. Mulder peered over his reading glasses with a moue of mingled irritation and apprehension as Alex rearranged the bookshelves for the fifth time in a week.

"Come on, Alex. How old are these children? You have everything in the house four or five feet up. You would think that we were going to be housing infant Grays." Mulder remarked. 

Darkly, Alex replied, "That would be too easy. You don't know these kids..."

Amused, Walter continued to thread popcorn and cranberries on a string. In the middle of a barrier created by linked freestanding playpen walls stood a Christmas tree. Velveteen panels of fabric covered the metal links. A hodgepodge of ornaments decorated the blue spruce. It was June, the day before Alex's birthday, but they had declared it the Christmas they had never had together.

A few days after Mulder and Skinner brought out their treasures, UPS delivered a box marked: breakable, valuable, this side up in repeated black stamps. The packing on the case said, Devonshire, England. Alex had carried it in from UPS himself and set it on the kitchen table. "My father's..." he explained, "Winthrop Mayfield Mannerly." He produced a dozen exquisite antique ornaments of types Walter had never seen outside of a museum. Alex laughed bitterly, remarking, "If things hadn't gone the way they did, I could have been Lord Mayfield. Imagine that..."

It hit Walter a moment later. Winthrop Mayfield Mannerly had been one of the consortium leaders. He had not been the worst of men and he had died a hero, but still, he had been a Consortium leader. That wasn't the surprise. One of the things that had sickened him about the conspiracy was their willingness to cannibalize their own offspring. No, what surprised him was that Alex had been the child of someone high up in the leadership. What the hell had happened for him to become one of Spender's abused pawns? It took all of his will not to ask the question out loud and demand an answer.

Walter added a kernel, alternated with a bright red cranberry and then put the string aside. He walked over and squatted next to Alex. His large hand cupped the rounded babyish chin and tilted it up. It was so pleasant not to feel his lover flinch and to see instead the kittenish tongue swiped the lips, slicking them for a kiss. Irresistible...Walter gave the expected kiss, but did not take his hand away. In fact, he had to gently stroke Alex's clean-shaven cheeks with the other. Mulder looked over, smiled, and nodded faintly in approval.

"Sometimes I think about life without you, Alex," Walter said, "and I realize that it wouldn't be like living."

Leading Alex to the comfortable couch, Walter sat down and pulled his lover into an embrace. Mulder abandoned his work to join them, supporting his share of Alex's body. His agile fingers unlaced Alex's boots and pulled off the clean white socks. As Walter rubbed Alex's shoulders, Mulder massaged each slender foot. 

"Are you sure that you want to do this?" Mulder asked, "If it's just an obligation, Alex, you shouldn't do it."

Frowning, Alex turned his wide set eyes full force on Mulder, making his lover gasp with the thrill of it. "I want to do it. Frank and Jesse have never has a real Christmas either even if it is my birthday not Christmas. I love Father Kolchev. He's the closest thing I had to a father."

Alex winced and Walter felt the shoulders tighten beneath his hands. "What about Mannerly?" He asked, wanting Mulder to know that Krycek's father had given his life for him.

A soft sigh escaped Alex's lips. He explained, "We didn't even find out we were related until he ran some tests on me. My father compared my blood type with the genetic database. I remember when he got the results...I wasn't being too cooperative. I was scared shit-less that Mannerly would decide I was a better lab animal than a thug. He walked in and just stood there looking at me. Then he reached out and touched my face. I..."

Alex blushed deep red. "I thought he was coming onto me and I said I'd make it really good for him if he would stop the tests. He started to cry and left the room. Next day, he had me sent to his apartment. You know what I was thinking...but as soon as I walked in he showed me pictures. I remembered my mother and sister right away. Funny, I remembered that I had a papa but no matter how often I saw Mannerly I didn't remember him."

"Shit!" Mulder exclaimed. "How could he live with that guilt? Did he know everything?"

Nodding, Alex repeated, "Everything...Spender loved to tell my father about his exploits. What he did to me. I guess he knew who my dad was. He even sent me to him before we knew. Fortunately, he didn't have a taste for captive flesh. You can say that about him."

Silence told Walter what both men must have been thinking. Mulder knew better than to ask Alex for details about his father and Alex never offered any. Alex leaned back to look up at him. "My mother was a good woman." There was wonder in his lover's voice as if he doubted how he could have had a parent who was untainted. "She really didn't know. Mannerly found her on a visit to the Russian consortium. She was a lot younger than he was. He said she was so beautiful that conversations would stop when she walked into the room. Can you imagine that?"

Eyes twinkling, Walter looked at Mulder. He very well could imagine. How could Alex be fought over, sold for a fortune, and never realize how profoundly lovely he was? He saw the things that happened, the men and women who obsessed over him as being attracted to something impure in his nature. He still saw himself as the bad seed. Mulder smiled wryly back and said, "You know Alex I bet I could describe her without ever seeing her. She had green eyes, beautiful green eyes, and hair thick and shining, like a mink with a multitude of brown shades, she was tall and had delicate features."

Nodding, Alex said, "Exactly, Mulder, I guess those alien powers really didn't go away."

Neither of them laughed, but it took a lot of will power or in Mulder's case, the need to assuage endless curiosity.

Alex said, "I don't remember much. My sister and I were close even though she was eleven when I was five. One day she wasn't there. I heard my mamma screaming and screaming at my father. I remember he said that he didn't know and would get her back. I guess my mother didn't believe him. As soon as he left, she packed up a few clothes and some of my toys. We got in one of the cars and drove for a long time. I remember crying because I wanted Kolya and my papa. Maybe it made her irritable because we crashed. I wasn't badly hurt, but she wasn't wearing her seat belt. I think she was reaching down to get something for me."

"Oh, Alex, don't blame yourself." Mulder said, leaning down to kiss him. "God, you're as fucked up as I am."

"So how did you end up with Father Kolchev?" Walter asked, stroking the soft hair meditatively. 

"She died." Alex said bleakly. "But before she did she swore she didn't know who my father was. I don't even know where she found the fake ID. I can't remember what last name she used, but I was always Alex. I remember that I lived in several places, but I cried a lot and I couldn't call any of the woman, mama. I had a mama. They didn't even take me to the funeral. She was buried as a pauper under a false name. I didn't believe she was dead although they told me. Finally, I learned to adapt, not to cry anymore. These people came to the foster home where I was living. They wanted a little girl, but another family was chosen for her. I was like the runt of the litter. Someone had to take me, but I was never the one you'd pick."

His own family was big, argumentative, and loving. Walter cherished them even at times when he could have run screaming from the house if he had to spend one more hour with them. Mulder had fragments of a normal childhood and his mother had loved him even if she never understood him...and after all, who did understand him? 

What had Alex had?

"It was a nice family. They meant well, but I wasn't the child they meant to adopt. I was supposed to bring them together instead ...they got divorced." Alex almost whispered this confidence as if reciting one on his dire confessions. "Neither of them wanted me. I was almost eight, too old to adopt. A couple of more foster homes and I decided to do what my foster mom said, shut up. I stopped talking entirely. That's why they put me in the boy's home. I kept it up for a few days there, but it didn't work much longer." 

Readjusting Alex's feet on his lap, Mulder asked, "Did they get you a good therapist?"

"Nope, I was cured by pepper," Alex replied with a grin. He wiggled his toes, asking for more massage. 

"I'll bite. How did pepper cure you?" Mulder asked.

"Father Kolchev had one of those big pepper grinders. He put me right next to him and would ask me if I wanted some. The first time I nodded yes. I mean, everyone thought it was neat to have pepper that didn't come out of a can. He asked me if I wanted more, but he wouldn't look at me for an answer. We had this little war going. I wouldn't talk and he wouldn't look at me when he asked me a question. I missed dessert, a ball game, and had too much pepper for three days until I finally had it. I yelled, 'No thank you!' He grabbed me up and did a Cossack dance all over the dining hall with me on his shoulders. I think I loved him from that night, not romantically, as a father, I mean." Alex said. "I was really happy there."

"How did you? How did Spender get you?" Walter asked. "You said you were a teenager when he took you."

"Yes, I was fifteen. I still don't know if he knew where I was all along or when he found me, but anyway, this nice family saw me in a book about kids who could be adopted. My social worker brought them to meet me, very excited that someone my age might be adopted. I didn't want it, but Father Kolchev kept telling me that it was the chance he had hoped for. They had the money for good schools and a college. I was bright, a good student. I already spoke French and Russian. So I went. They legally adopted me and, at first, it was fine. They didn't seem like a real family, of course, but they were interested in my grades and made sure I had all the right experiences. They had me playing on the school teams, going to the dances, and even working on the school paper. Spender used to visit. He always seemed interested, but nothing bad happened until I was seventeen. I had... uh... spent the night with a friend, a male friend who was slightly older. I figured I would be on restriction. Instead, these thugs dragged me out the door and I spend the rest of the summer with Spender."

"He raped you?" Mulder asked despite Walter's forbidding frown.

"Yes, and he handed me around to anyone that wanted me. I got away once. I didn't know better and went straight to Kolchev just as I went to you. They followed and beat Kolchev hard enough to put him in the hospital. I ran away a few more times, but they always found me even though I didn't endanger anyone I knew from then on." Alex said. "Finally, just to survive, I cooperated and was rewarded by being left alone pretty much to finish college. I took criminal justice. I was going to go to Quantico. For some reason, I couldn't think further then that. As if they would have done all that work just to let me be an ordinary agent. The recruiter's snapped me up. I was set. When I met you, I really hadn't killed anyone, Mulder. I halfway believed Spender that all my suffering was for a noble cause. We were going to protect humanity from the monsters only who was more monstrous then us?"

Silent now, Alex closed his eyes, shutting us both out as he reviewed his memories. Finally he gripped my hand hard and said, "But Father Kolchev always believed in me. Even when he knew I was a whore."

Walter bit back the words he wanted to say, that Alex never was one really, but it would have been a lie and Alex was done with lying. Instead, he said, "You did what you had to do just as we all did, Alex. What's important is that we survived and we're together."

~~~~~~~~~~O~~~~~~~~~~

Scully arrived early the next morning, lugging her baby. She had chosen not to run the blood tests. It was a healthy boy with healthy lungs. Everyone helped her set up a playpen, a high chair, and hauled in enough diapers and baby luggage to supply a small orphanage.

 Mulder said, "Nomadic mothers made do with a cloth sling and some soft leaves to line it."

"Thank God that I'm not one of those." Scully said irritably, blowing a lock of hair out of her eyes. 

William had red hair and blue eyes. He had a temper that matched the legendary Scully temperament. Right now, he was all toothless charm. No, Mulder had allowed the infant to mouth his finger and he shouted, "Ow. He bit me."

Two sharp white nubs protruded from his mouth. Alex said, "Oh, look, he has his front teeth."

"I know." Mulder said, witheringly. Or it would have withered if Alex was paying attention. Alex was busy however. Kolchev was right behind Scully so a host more equipment poured inside along with two adorable toddlers. 

Frank and Jesse had grown. Despite a couple of failed adoptions, they appeared happy and bold. Double the emphasis on the bold. 

Jesse's hair had darkened. It was the color of Mulder's now. Frank's eyes had deepened in color until they were nearly green. They still seemed disinclined to part, doing everything together. Scully bent over them enchanted. "Oh, they're so cute!" She exclaimed.

His smile was a broad as a barn. Father Kolchev had already made a conquest of William. He looked like a porcelain miniature in the crook of the priest's black clad arm. He tromped, snow flying off his bear like body. He beard flung wet droplets and his bulbous nose was quite red. "My boys are hungry," he roared.

"There goes the kitchen." Alex remarked. "He's a great cook, but he's a total slob." 

Scully had continued to examine the boys. She said, "Mulder, Jesse looks a lot like those pictures of you your mother showed me."

Squatting, Mulder examined the unformed features. Jesse stared right back until he reached out and grabbed a handful of nose. Mulder yelled and fell back causing the toddler to yelp. 

"Bad." Frank mouthed. "Bad man." He apparently thought that Mulder had deliberately hurt his brother.

"Shit." Mulder said, "It's true. And Frank looks like you, Alex."

"That's what I needed to tell you," Father Kolchev said, "That project of matching the children and stored genetic material to their originators has been going well. We entered every known abductee and everyone who ever had any known connection to the Consortium. That included everyone is this house. These two are not normal products of artificial insemination. They are constructs, another alien experiment."

"No, I tested them. They're not hybrids. They are perfectly human." Alex said. 

"You're right. They're human and they are related to you, Alex. They also share one-fourth genetic heritage with Mulder and Mr. Skinner as well as with the charming Ms. Scully. It is as if each is the child of four parents. Melvin finally rescued some of the purged documents. Apparently, that evil old man thought so highly of the four of you that he intended to breed a race of highly adaptable and survival prone soldiers. These two were experimental models, but after Spender died; no one else thought much of the idea. They felt that the children were ungovernable even at the age they are now." Father Kolchev said. 

"No!" Alex cried and ran out of the room. 

Father Kolchev said, "Watch the boys. I'll go and talk to him. I think I know what's wrong."

Walter knelt to offer a cookie to the green-eyed child, Frank. The toddler turned to Jesse and made to break the treat in half. Pleased, Walter said, "No, Frank, Jesse will have his own."

The child waited until he saw that his brother had his treat before taking a messy bite. He ate like a humanoid chipmunk, stuffing his cheeks apparently fearful that the food would be taken away. Walter started to pour milk into a regular glass, but Scully stopped him and said, "No, Walter, plastic."

Looking, the only thing of that nature was a pair of drive in souvenirs from the Pretender movie that Mulder had dragged them to see. Walter grimaced. The damn thing had given Alex nightmares. If he'd known it was about a child kidnapped and coerced to grow up as a weapon, he would have refused to attend and made Alex stay home too. Anyway, he poured milk into the cups and managed to get the toddlers to sit still long enough to drink it. They would need new furniture for the boys, he supposed.

Guiltily, Walter exchanged glances with Mulder and said, "Well, I can't see myself in them, Mulder. They're both pretty as you and Alex are."

Mulder rested his chin upon his folded arms on the table and studied the kids. He said softly, "Don't get attached, Walter. Alex feels violated all over again by this. He never wanted to have kids although he likes them. He feels that something would happen such as what was done to him."

"It's over," Walter said, and casting a strangely longing look at the children, he added, "It's not their fault either that they were born."

~~~~~~~~~~O~~~~~~~~~~

For a moment, Father Kolchev thought he had stepped into the distant past. The bed was so huge that even Alex's tall, sturdy body seemed dwarfed by it. He could have been the skinny kid that Father Kolchev remembered so well. He was curled in a knot, knees drawn up and his arm wrapped around them. 

Sitting on the bed, Father Kolchev looked around the room. It was a hodgepodge of decor, bits of all three men showing in the collection of books, everything from the complete Sherlock Holmes, to Russian poetry, and the works of Edgar Cayce. A quilt was folded at the foot of the bed, bright, homemade, and substantial. That must be Walter Skinner's contribution. The basketball probably was Mulder's.

Alex had talked one night for a long time about watching Mulder play. Kolchev didn't need to feel any attraction to the male sex to recognize the talk of a man in love. Other than the books, it was hard to guess what might be Alex's contribution. He'd never had the chance to decide who he was. Spender called all the shots.

Reaching out, Father Kolchev stroked Alex's hair. It was a soft as he remembered, so alive and silken, springing back against his palm. Frank had hair like that. That had been his first clue.

"They never have to go through what you did, Alex," Father Kolchev said. 

"I'll make sure of that," Alex said, "I thought I could hide myself here and pretend it never happened, but I'm never going to feel safe until I have hunted them all down. Seeing those kids, I remember that. I have to make sure that I've found every project and rescued every victim who is still alive."

"Oh, Alex, perhaps that's not your job now. You've suffered so much,' Father Kolchev said.

The priest's huge bear-like arms opened and invited Alex inside. After a moment, his protege took the invitation and allowed himself to be hugged. "Father, I thought I could just stay here and say it was over, but how can I? My sins..."

"You can start by forgiving yourself. You fought the good fight, Alex. It's time to rest. For me too, I am retiring from the home. I've found a bright young Irish priest to replace me. Would you mind if I looked for a place near by? I would like to spend my declining years near the favorite of all my children," Kolchev said.

"You don't have to look," Alex declared. "There's the cottage in back. It used to belong to the orchard manager, but Dana's family had it remodeled into a nice little house. It would be perfect for you."

The joy fled from Alex's eyes and he said, "God, what about the boys? Will they let you take them with you?"

"No, I am too old to adopt them. The worker for the state says that they will be separated. She says they are too wild to be placed as a pair and neither one of them will ever have a real family at this rate. With the Alien Repatriation Act, all four of you will have to sign relinquishments of your parental rights. The rule is that any genetic parent of the children created by the aliens will first be offered to the genetic parents. That has given joy to many of the former victims who did not expect to have a child that was related to them," Kolchev said. He shook his massive head.

A crash sounded from down stair and Father Kolchev scrambled up to see what the hellions had done now. Alex followed and found it was only the kitchen. Frank had pulled down the pots and pans while Jesse had pulled off all his clothing and was now dancing nude on top the breakfast nook table. Mulder, overtaken by a fit of laughter, collared the little exhibitionist and said, "My Mom said she could never keep my clothes on me. This kid is mine!"

The badly frightened Frank had found refuge in Walter's arms. He clung to the burly man, perhaps finding him similar enough to the priest to be a comfort. His chubby cheek was pressed to Walter's shirt and a grubby thumb inserted in the cupid's bow lips. Walter looked as if he was melting. He cast a begging look at Alex.

Taking a deep breath, Alex said, "I guess they are our responsibility. Unless Scully..."

The woman shook her head. She protectively held baby William tight to her breast and said, "I couldn't handle them. I'll help, but if what the Father states is true, then they are no more mine than they are yours. Alex, you're home most of the time and so is Mulder. You can raise them. Men can raise children, can't they, Father?"

Hands hit Scully's hips; she glared and said, "Alex Krycek, don't you think you should stop thinking about yourself and start thinking about these children? They don't want to be parted. They share one soul. It's obvious."

Staring at the children, naked Jesse twisting Mulder's ear in his chubby fingers and Frank starting to drowse and leaving a drool spot on Walter's shirt, Alex gave in. Why fight it? He would never stop worrying that someone like Spender would get these boys and destroy them the way he tried to ruin Alex.

Alex said, "Okay, if Walter and Mulder are willing? What would need to do?"

"All four of you would need to sign the genetic donor statements and then Scully would need to agree to cede custody to you three. As the biological parents, you have rights to the boys. You probably should legally change their names. Right now they are Jesse Doe and Frank Doe."

"We'll give them all three names," Walter said, rocking his now slumbering child.

"No, Krycek isn't me," Alex said. "They could be Jesse Mannerly Skinner-Mulder and Frank Mannerly Skinner-Mulder unless Scully wants her name in there?"

"Not me. I have William Scully. Oh God, I am going to have to explain this to my Mom! She already is sure that I am hiding some inappropriate affair with William. When I explain that these babies combine all four of our genes, she'll be picturing an orgy!" Scully complained.

"Gee, Scully, you wild thing!' Mulder teased.

"Shut up, Mulder," Scully snapped.

~~~~~~~~~~O~~~~~~~~~~

That night as Alex lay in bed between his lovers, he felt them holding him close, comforting him. "Are you sure you want to do this?" Mulder asked.

"Yeah, I guess. I'm just worried," Alex said.

"That it will change our lives?" Mulder asked. He moved closer, sighing contentedly as Alex's body molded warmly to his. Alex reached for Walter and lowered his face to rest in the crook of his lover's throat.

Slightly muffled, Alex said, "Well, it will, but Father Kolchev will be here all the time to help. No, I guess I'm worried that I'll do something bad with the kids. I mean what do I know about a normal life. I can't understand why you two put up with me. You would be happier without me."

"Alex, waking up in the morning, the first thing I do is look to see if you are really there," said Mulder.

"I wake up with my hand resting on you, afraid that somehow Spender had come back from the grave to steal you," Walter said.

"Really?" Alex asked. "You don't think that I'll be a terrible parent."

"You know, Alex, in all the time I've known you, you've done everything you have ever set your mind to do. You've done with you whole soul from loving us to fighting the aliens. Why would being a father be different?" Walter told him. He could feel Alex's hot breath on his neck, his hand crept between Mulder's body, and Alex's to stroke the satin flesh of his lover's ass. 

Mulder grinned, nudging Walter's hand with his erection. "Let's make love,"

"What about the kids? Scully? Father Kolchev?" Alex protested.

"The guest bedrooms are all downstairs. They won't hear us," Mulder declared.

A kiss along the nape of Alex's neck caused him to shiver. Walter's large hands mapped the contours of Alex's body, the hollow tender valleys of his pelvis, the crisp curls at his groin, the steely muscles of his powerful thighs. Walter could feel Alex's heart beating. His own moved in harmony, faster, louder as Alex's lips met his. 

Mulder's mouth traced Alex's spine, nipping gently, brushing his lips gently over silken flesh, and painting circles with his tongue. Walter felt Alex's moan against his lips and he moaned back as Alex's hand caressed him.

"If I could have planned and pleaded for a more perfect pair of lovers, my Alex, my Mulder," Walter said. His hand encased Alex in turn. He felt the toned body literally vibrating with passion, responding to them with tender, total abandon.

"Inside me," Alex moaned, "Mulder, please,"

"All in good time," Mulder teased before delving back to tongue Alex into speaking tongues.

His lover was heat, fire and silk, an elemental creature, but he anchored himself to Walter's Earth. They lacked only the water element, because Mulder was air, winged creature of their souls. 

"Slow him down. I want him to give us everything he has. I want him to be so on fire that he won't be able to worry. I want this to be as perfect as he is," Mulder said fiercely.

Obediently, Walter slowed the pace. Alex tossed his head, bared his teeth in a threatening white-toothed way. "Shh, there, just wait! This is going to be so good, Alex."

Eyes rolling back as Mulder slowly entered him, his large cock joining him to Alex. Alex moaned, brow furling, and nose crinkling when Mulder begin to rock then his throat vibrated with a sound between a groan and a purr. Walter had to kiss the long white neck and feel the sound ululating out.

"Like this, heaven can't be much better," Walter said. Alex's hand coaxed him nearer oblivion, sweet explosion of flesh and passion of heart. It was ceremony and joining beyond that of the sweating bodies that had fallen into rhythm with each other.

It didn't happen often. It was not always needed. But oh God, how wonderful when each of them hit the edge and over together. Together...most beautiful word in the world.

Ragged breaths. Bodies laid open to the aftershocks of passions. Three souls in harmony...lovers. Forever lovers beyond parting. 

~~~~~~~~~~O~~~~~~~~~~

Alex liked to get up early, make the coffee, gaze out at the apple orchard and dream. After so many years of running, sitting at his own table and gazing at land he owned with the most beautiful men on earth was a wonder.

The kitchen....the kitchen looked as if some giant had poured pancake batter everywhere. It smelled great. Peach compote. Apple honey wheat pancakes. Ham sizzling in the pan.

Two small children finger- painted batter on the fridge. All the magnets formed a train on the lower half. One drooping diaper sagged on Jesse's bottom as he tried to reach higher than his brother; Frank turned and recognizing his old friend, who had taken him from the awful box, grinned.

"Papa?" Frank's voice questioned. 

It was a gift. Perhaps all men were papas to this confused child, but Alex took it as an omen. He gathered sticky and stinky child to his arms and said, "Yes, I'm your Papa!"

Jesse abandoned by his brother had climbed up on the counter. As Alex rose to greet Father Kolchev, Jesse managed to reach his goal, the three- layer chocolate-decadence cake on the counter. His hand captured a handful of frosting before the entire cake fell. Chocolate, candles, and frosting rained down on Alex, who sat back on his heels.

"Oops," said Jesse.

Naturally, his lovers walked into the kitchen and found Alex sitting, covered with cake, and both toddlers straddling his helplessly laughing body.

"Oops, indeed," Mulder said evilly. "I know what I'm going to have for breakfast."

Walter picked up Frank and handed the hellion to Mulder, cake, wet diaper, and all. He captured Jesse before the even more mischievous child could escape and gave him to father number three as well.

Reaching down, Walter grabbed his lover and brought him to his feet, sweeping him into his arms and kissing the chocolate smeared lips. "Happy birthday, Alex. Merry Christmas, and, lover, many, many more."

Mulder unhanded the toddlers to Kolchev who grinned at the totally unhinged household. He captured Alex from Walter and kissed him as fiercely as Walter had. "Mazltov, Alex, mazltov, who would ever think we would be here, alive, happy..."

Scully had arrived at the scene of happy disaster with William. She took in the scene with hardly an askance look...after all where Mulder and Krycek went, chaos followed.

Mulder continued after swiping a tiny taste of chocolate from the corner of Alex's eye, "in the middle of friends and family. I think, Alex, we have arrived at the time of our lives."

The self-doubt hit again. Why had Alex survived when so many had died? His father, his mother, his sister, Mulder's entire family and so many others?

Father Kolchev knew him well. He said, "Alex, there's only one answer to those who survive death and look around them, wondering why them?"

"What is it?" Alex asked.

"Live, love, be happy," Kolchev said.

Standing in the ocean of his lovers, the man most like a father to him, Scully, slowly becoming the sister he had always missed, Alex agreed. He would live and maybe, just maybe, it was all right to be happy. 

 

The epilog to Hard Rain, promised to Lorelei and to several others who kept me going during the serious parts of the series.

The final lyric:

"But I'll know my song well before I start singin"

Alex's song is now done and he has found warm shelter from the hard rain. Happy birthday, my beautiful one.

  
Archived: July 04, 2001 


End file.
